The Gazette 1961 - 64

DECISIONS OF PROFESSIONAL INTEREST

out. The vendor's leasehold interest in the flats was sold by auction on 13 December 1961. The certificate of disrepair was not disclosed to the purchaser. The particulars of sale gave the rent of the flat as 285. 3d. weekly. The conditions of sale provided, by condition 4, that no representation or warrant was made by the vendor that the rent payable in respect of the tenancy was that properly chargeable under the Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Acts, 1920 to 1939, as amended by the Rent Act, 1957; and the condition provided that the purchaser should not make any requisition with regard thereto. Held—The vendor had been bound to disclose to the purchaser the certificate of disrepair and con sequent abatement of rent and was not entitled to require performance of contract by the purchaser without regard to the prospective abatement of rent condition 4 of the conditions of sale not being ap plicable to the future abatement of permitted rent by virtue of the certificate of disrepair that had been served. (Rosslyn and Lorimer Estates Ltd. v. Englefield Holdings Ltd. The Law Times, August 24th, 1962, page 473). A.dmissibility of Evidence: Use of Tape Recorder. Four men were charged with burglary and larceny, were cautioned and were confined in separate cells in a police station pending trial. A corridor divided the cells from each other and the police placed a recording machine in a nearby empty cell. At the trial a policeman gave evidence of having heard the defendants shouting incriminating remarks to one another across the corridor and he stated that he could confirm from his own human memory the accuracy of the records of these conversations which were on tape and which he had played back to him self for the purpose of checking and proving his own note made from memory. The tape recording was not itself used in evidence in court and there was no suggestion that the tape had been tampered with in any way between the time that the conversations took place and the time that the policeman played it back in order to check his memory. On the question of the admissibility of the policeman's evidence it was held by the Court of Criminal Appeal that this evidence was admissible because (i) the tape recorder was used by the policeman to perform the function which would otherwise have been per formed by a pen or pencil in his own hand, and he used the record produced by the tape recorder to refresh his memory when he was giving evidence. Alternatively, the machine was set by the policeman to perform the function of making a record and very soon after the conversations had taken place the policeman adopted as accurate the record which the machine had made and thereupon it became his own

Communication between Husband and Wife : admissible in Criminal Proceedings. At common law there has never been a separate principle or rule that communications between a husband and wife during marriage are inadmissible in evidence on grounds of public policy (so held by Lords Reid, Morris, Hodson and Pearce, Lord Radcliffe dissenting) ; accordingly, except where the spouse to whom the communication is made claims privilege from disclosure under sect, i (d) of the Criminal Evidence Act, 1898, evidence as to com munications between husband and wife during marriage is admissible in criminal proceedings. The appellant, who was the mate of a Dutch ship, was convicted of non-capital murder committed at Menai Bridge. Part of the evidence tor the pro secution admitted at his trial consisted of a letter he had written to his wife in Holland which amounted to a confession. The appellant had written the letter on the day of the killing, on board his ship after it had left Menai Bridge for Liverpool; he had handed the letter in a closed envelope to a member of the crew requesting him to post it as soon as the ship arrived at a port outside England. The appellant was arrested when the ship reached Liverpool, and after his arrest the member of the crew handed the envelope to the captain of the ship who handed it over to the police. The member of the crew, the captain and the translator of the letter gave evidence at the trial but the wife was not called as a witness. On appeal against conviction on the ground that the letter was wrongly admitted in evidence. Held—The appellant was rightly convicted because, for the reasons stated above, the letter was admissible in evidence. Appeal dismissed. (Rumping v. Director of Public Prosecutions, 1962, 3 All England Reports 256). A vendor was entitled to a lease of two flats which were subject to control under the Rent Act 1957. On 12 October, 1961 the borough council served on the vendor a certificate of disrepair under the Rent Act, 1957 in respect of one of the flats. The effect of this was that the rent payable by the tenant of that flat was abated as from 15 January, 1962 from 283. jd. weekly to 155. 7d. weekly and would remain abated unless and until repairs were carried 46 whether Sale ofLand: Disclosure ofService ofNotice ofDisrepair: Performance of Contract.