281 / 336
to bear the name of our patron saint. This was due to
lack of numbers being committed by the Courts to
Borstal which resulted in the Minister for Justice trans-
ferring to Clonmel young adult prisoners already com-
mitted to ordinary prisons. The mixing of the long-
terms Borstal detainees and the shorter term ordinary
prisoners meant that the original idealistic concept of
providing proper educational and vocational training
was frustrated. The system, however, still operates in
Northern Ireland, at Woburn, and in the United
Kingdom.
The legal death of the Borstal system took place with
the passing of the Criminal Justice Act, 1960, which
abolished once and for all the term "Borstal". The situ-
ation in S. Patrick's Institution in Dublin since 1956
and the recent introduction of the more humane "open"
institutions at Shanganagh Castle, Shankill, Co. Dublin,
and Loughan House, County Cavan, are described in
detail by the author.
His concluding chapters, which are the more inter-
esting parts of the book, contain the author's own views
and comments on the Borstal system with comparisons
between the system in the North and in the South
after partition.
An interesting fact that emerges in the comparison
between the two systems is that in the North, corporal
punishment in Borstal institutions has been permitted
since 1930, but it was never allowed in the South or
in the United Kingdom, although dietary punishment
was permitted in the South. The author quotes one
Northern M.P. during the debate on the Bill permitting
corporal punishment as saying t ha t: "Two or three
licks of the cane or a punch on the nose is a more apt
punishment than a starvation diet or a transfer to an
ordinary prison."
Borstal in Ireland
is a basic book on a subject on
which little or nothing has been written to date. It is,
therefore, an essential reference book for everyone inter-
ested in the penal system, whether lawyers, social
workers, legislators, humanitarians, ex-Borstal boys, or
simply fans of Brendan Behan. Knowledge of what went
before is an essential pre-requisite to anyone seeking to
change the law relating to our prison system and to
persons convicted of crimes.
Mr. Osborough is to be complimented on his work, as
also is the Institute of Public Administration, who
published it, and UCD (where Mr. Osborough is
Dean of the Faculty of Law), the Arthur Cox Foun-
dation and the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland,
who helped financially. The author at times quotes
Edmund Burke in his book—Burke, whom someone
described as "oft quoted but little read". I hope Mr.
Osborough's book will be both "oft" quoted and "oft"
read.
Michael M.
O'Mahony
Smith (J. C.) and Hogan (Brian)— Criminal Law:
Cases and Materials.
8vo. Pp. xxviii, 672. London, But-
terworth, 1975. £7.60 limp; £12.00 bound.
This learned voume, written by two expert Professors
of Criminal Law, follows the American pattern of con-
sidering a law subject by relating it to extracts from
cases, from relevant textbooks, and from relevant cita-
tions. This system has been developed in English univer-
sities relatively recently, and is far more interesting
and stimulating than being confined to a dry textbook.
In discussing the various crimes, they refer to the pages
of their own well-known textbook. Insofar as they have
to refer to an extract from a case, it will only be printed
once in the text.
In considering the defence of duress, apart from the
recent Northern Ireland case of
Lynch,
(1975), the case
of
R.
v.
Hudson & Taylor
— (1971) 2 All E.R. —
where two girls deliberately failed to identify a man on
a charge of wounding them, on the ground that they
would be slashed if they told the truth. The Judge
refused to leave the defence of duress to the jury, and
they were subsequently convicted of perjury. The Court
of Criminal Appeal held that duress should have been
put as a defence to the jury, and allowed the appeal.
Another case in which the appeal was allowed was that
of
Jordan
— (1956) 40 Crim. App. Repts. Jordan
stabbed a man in a cafe in Hull on 4 May 1956 and this
man died on May 12. The pathologist stated that the
cause of death was broncho-pneumonia following pene-
trating abdominal injury. A successful application was
made to the Court of Criminal Appeal to call t\yo
eminent doctors to the effect that the wound was not
the cause of death. The Privy Council decision of
Edwards
— (1973) 1 All E.R. — deserves mention.
The accused followed Dr. Coombes from Australia to
Hong Kong intending to blackmail him. There he went
to see Coombes in his hotel bedroom, and Coombes
attacked him with a knife, inflicting several wounds on
him. The accused then wrested the knife from Coom-
bes, and stabbed him severely in a fit of temper. He
was convicted of murder in the Hong Kong High
Court, as the Chief Justice had directed that the defence
of provocation was not available. The Court of Appeal
held this was a misdirection, but upheld the conviction
on the ground that no miscarriage of justice had
occurred. The Privy Council reduced the conviction to
manslaughter, because the defences of provocation and
self-defence should have been put to the jury, though
the defence of self-defence seldom in fact succeeds. The
extraordinary case of
Hyam
— (1974) 2 All E.R. — in
which a woman set fire to a house, by pouring a tin of
petrol into it, in order to kill three children and
another woman, who was an alleged rival of her lover,
was held by a majority of the House of Lords to be
manslaughter, and not murder. A more surprising case
is
Shannon
— (1974) 2 All E.R. — where the House of
Lords restored a conviction for conspiracy, although the
co-conspirator had been acquitted. The House of
Lords also reversed the Court of Criminal Appeal in
Dott
— (1973) 3 All
E
.R.; here the American accused
had been convicted of conspiracy to import drugs, but
acquitted in the Court of Appeal. In
Haughton
v.
Smith
— (1973) 3 All E.R. — the House of Lords also
restored a conviction of attempting to handle stolen
goods dishonestly; the curious circumstance was that
policemen were hidden in the van containing the stolen
goods, and thus had no trouble in arresting the receivers.
The text is illustrated by ample questions to be
answered by students, which greatly enhances its value.
The learned authors are to be congratulated upon
having selected a most readable material on criminal
law.
Kemp (David I.), Turriff (Derrick), Moxom (John M.)
and Seymour (Richard W.)—The Quantum of Dam-
ages in Personal Injury and Fatal Injury Claims.
Two
volumes. Fourth edition. Vol. I : Law and Practice in
Fatal Accident Awards. 8vo. Pp. xxxiii, 431. Vol. II,
Loose Leaf : Awards listed according to type of injury
.274