459 / 462
Sinnott v O'Connor Supreme Court 12
February 1991
CONTRACT — INDUCEMENT BfY
FRAUD — WHETHER ESTABLISHED —
WHETHER REPRESENTATION AS TO
ACCURACY OF DRAFT COMPANY
ACCOUNTS MADE — SUPREME
COURT — WHETHER FINDINGS OF
HIGH COURT JUSTIFIED ON THE EVI-
DENCE
The plainliff and defendant entered into an agree-
ment in which it was acknowledged that the defen-
dant was entitled tQ a 50% share in a company, in
respect of which both parties had been prime movers.
A meeting had taken place between the parties prior
to them entering into the agreement. At the meeting,
draft accounts for the company had been presented
which indicated a profit of £91,000 for the year in
question. The defendant was also told that, while he
could not be made director of the company, he
would be given all the rights and entitlements of a
director. The defendant signed the agreement in
question after this meeting. Audited accounts for the
company were later prepared, and these indicated
that, in fact, the company made a profit £7,000 for
the year in question rather than the £91,000 indi-
cated in the draft accounts presented at the meeting
between the parties. The defendant had assumed,
on the basis of the draft accounts, that the agreement
entered into would entitle him to a substantial sum
of money; but on the basis of the actual figures
presented he was in deficit to the company to the
extent of about £22,000. The audited accounts hade
been approved at ameeting of the board of directors
of the company. Due to an oversight, the defendant
did not receive a copy of the audited accounts until
after the boardmeeting and thus had no opportunity
to seek to have the accounts rerected. The plaintiff
instituted omceedings in which the defendant
i ramlmclaimedrtMtlheJwreeinenientged imo had
been indocwi btrartrauduleiM mJietcwiafon bvthe
plaintiff as to the accuracy or the draft set of ac-
counts. The oiaintiff denied that he had made anv
representation as to the accuracy ot the draft ac-
counts and that he had, on the contrary, indicated to
the defendant that they were not accurate and
would require some adjustment downwards. In the
High Court, Murphy J dismissed the defendant's
counterclaim, holding that since, on the evidence,
no representation had been made by the plaintiff as
to the accuracy of the accounts the question of fraud
did not arise. He also held that, while it was unfor-
tunate that the defendant had not been informed in
lime of the date of the meeting at which the audited
accounts were approved by the board of the com-
pany, this was not relevant to the defendant's counter-
claim. On appeal by the defendant
HELD
by the
SupremeCourt (Finlay C), Hederman and O'Flaherty
II) dismissing the appeal: (1) the Supreme Court was
only entitled, on appeal from the High Court, to ask
whether the trial judge was correct, on the facts as
properly found by him, to come to the conclusion
that he did; (2) in the instant case, not only was the
trial judge entitled to come to the findings he did, but
he could not reasonably have come to any other
findings; and on the evidence he was constrained to
acquit the plaintiff of any fraud or, indeed, of any
form of malpractice which would call for reproach;
(2) while it was unfortunate that the defendant was
not in fact given the rights and privileges akin to a
director in the context of receiving the audited
accounts in good time, it was accepted that this was
due to a genuine mistake and not to any deliberate
action on the part of »
#
he plaintiff: and since there was
no suggestion that the accounts had not been prop-
erly prepared, the trial judge had been correct in
concluding that no representations that the defen-
dant might have made could have been of any
relevance.
The People(D.P.P.) v ReidCourt ofCrimi-
nal Appeal 20 February
1991
CRIMINAL LAW — EVIDENCE — COR-
ROBORATION — SEXUAL OFFENCE
— EVIDENCE OF COMPLAINANT —
WARNING TO JURY — WHETHER
ADEQUATE—WHETHERTRIALJUDGE
FAILED TO IDENTIFY CORROBORA-
TIVE EVIDENCE — WHETHER PREJU-
DICIAL EVIDENCE AS TO MENTAL
STATE OF COMPLAINANT ACTUALLY
ADMITTED — APPLICATION FOR
CERTIFICATE THAT POINT OF LAW OF
EXCEPTIONAL PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
INVOLVED — REFUSAL — Courts of
Justice Act 1924, s.29 — Criminal Law
(Rape) (Amendment) Act 1990
The applicant had been convicted of rape in the
Circuit Criminal Court. In evidence he accepted that
sexual intercourse had taken place with the com-
plainant but alleged that it had been consensual. His
application for leave to appeal to the Court of
Criminal Appeal related primarily to the trial judge's
warning to the jury as to the dangers of convicting on
the uncorroborated evidence of the complainant.
The trial judge indicated that the jury was entitled to
convict without corroborative evidence but that it
was dangerous to do so. The trial judge later referred
to medical evidence which indicated that there was
no bruisingon tbe complainant's bodv, but that the
indications from ha- vagina wae that sexual inter-
course had recently taken place and that certain
torce was used. The trial iudge also referred to the
evidence of the distressed condition of the com-
plainant at the time. The trial judge did not deal
specifically with the question as to what constituted
corroborative evidence, having indicated to coun-
sel that he would give the usual warning in relation
to corroboration and would allow the jury to decide
whether there was in fact corroboration.
HELD
by
the Court of Criminal Appeal (O'Flaherty, Keane
and Lavan |J) dismissing the application for leave to
appeal: (1) there was no requirement in law that the
warning to be given in cases such as the present
should be in any particular form; and having regard
to the course which the trial judge had indicated to
counsel he was going to take in his charge, it was
understandable that he did not deal in any detail
with the matters which the jury might have treated
as being corroborative of the complainant's ac-
count. The
People
v
Williams
11940] IR 195 and
The
People v Egan (L.)
11990] ILRM 780 discussed.
Per
curiam:
while the Criminal Law (Rape) (Amend-
ment) Act 1990 came into force after the trial in the
instant case, trial judges may feel that a warning may
still be required; and in general, it may be of assis-
tance for the trial judge to draw the jury's attention
to those aspects of the evidence which are capable
of corroborating thecomplainant's version; (2) there
was ample evidence in the instant case to corrobo-
rate the complainant's version, but if the jury mistak-
enly believed that there was no such corroboration
then, in the light of the trial judge's warning, they
could only have applied a standard which was
unnecessarily favourable to the applicant; (3) no
evidence prejudicial to the applicant had emerged
indicating that the complainant had a mild form of
mental disability since counsel for the applicant had
objected before a question on this point had been
posed by counsel for the prosecution; (4) the ques-
tion as to whether the charge to the jury in the instant
case was adequate — despite the lack of an objec-
tion in the court of trial to the failure of the trial judge
to identify those items of evidence which were
capable of amounting to corroboration — did not
appear to raise a point of law, and certainly did not
raise a point of law of exceptional public impor-
tance which would merit a certificate of appeal to
the Supreme Court pursuant to s.29 of the 1924 Act.
G. and McD. v Governor of Mountjoy
Prison High Court 7 March 1991
CRIMINAL LAW — YOUNG PERSONS
—CONVICTION—CERTIFICATE THAT
YOUNG PERSONS DEPRAVED AND
THAT THEY BE DETAINED IN PRISON
— WHETHER POWER TO IMPRISON
YOUNG PERSON INCONSISTENT
WITH CONSTITUTION — CONSTITU-
T I ON — PERSONAL RIGHTS -
WHETHER EVIDENCE INDICATING
DEPRAVED CHARACTER — WHETHER
'DEPRAVED' VAGUE - PRISON RULES
— WHETHER BREACH OF RULES
ENTITLES APPLICANT TO RELIEF -
Constitution, Article 40.3 — Children
Act 1908, ss.102, 131 — Rules for the
Government of Prisons 1947, rr. 223,
224.
The applicants were both 15 years of age, and were
young persons' within s.131 of the 1908 Act. They
were both convicted of assault and other offences,
and had been sentenced in the District Court (Chil-
dren's Court) to terms of imprisonment ranging from
three to 12 months imprisonment. The Judge of the
District Court before whom they appeared certified
that the applicants, both of whom had a number of
previous convictions, should serve their sentence:
in a prison since they were, within the meaning of
s.102 of the 1908 Act, 'of so depraved a character'
that they were not fit to be detained in an institution
for young offenders. The applicants sought an en-
quiry pursuant to Article 40.4 of the Constitution,
seeking various forms of relief, including a declara-
tion that s.102 of the 1908 Act was inconsistent with
the Constitution, that the word 'depraved' lacked
clarity and that there was no evidence on which the
applicants should be detained in a prison, and that
their conditions of confinement were in breach of
the 1947 Prison Rules. The applicants did not seek
release from custody but that some form of secure
accommodation be provided. HELD by Blayney I
dismissing the application: (1) the power to order
detention of a 'young person' in prison under s.102
of the 1908 Act- was not inconsistent with the
applicants' personal rights under Article 40.3 of the
Constitution since, on the contrary, it defends their
rights by prohibiting the detention in prison of the
young person except in certain specified circum-
stances; and the requirement that the young person
be 'depraved' was perfectly fair as the other young
persons in a place of detention must be protected
against anyone who is so depraved as not to be fit to
be detained there; (2) the absence of any definition
of 'depraved' in the 1908 Act, or of any judicial
decision on its interpretation did not mean thai the
2
November 1991