The Gazette 1975

1 0 u s c through the main door. I did not close it Properly. She came back into the hall and when I was ryjng to get her out again, the defendant came into i n e hall and lie beat me around the face." Sokl his house when wife left him I he plaintiff went on to relate in distressed tones at when he came home on the following Friday, his th I l h C Í r c h i , d r e n and the furniture were gone from house. His wife lived with the defendant and as « result had a child by the defendant. He had sold his °use. He was in physical fear of the defendant. w e h a d nothing to live for. He was humiliated. He home 3 ^ ^ h a p p i l y m a r r i e d man and they had a nice The wife left the house next day and he Id not know where she went to for some lime until J , discovered she had a flat on Wellington Road, vnere he visited her and a later date spent four days leaving when he could not stick any more of it. He had not given her money because he was not forking. He attributed the change in her attitude owards him to the defendant's intervention. When he ned to resume married life with her at the flat, she •d not respond, telling him instead of the things the e endant had promised her, including a house and her own car. The wife began her evidence by saying that the defendant had five children of his own. When efendant's wife died, she went across to ^ f a be lpi n & hand with the housework and after a while the defendant paid her for her work in the °nse. Then closer relations between them developed ? n d s he found herself pregnant. She did not tell her husband. After the row over the Saturday night party, her nusband left the house on the Sunday and she left it ®n the Monday, first living with the defendant's sister, , e r S i t i ng the flat where, when her husband visited she tried to make it up with him. She told him hen of her pregnancy. Her husband first told her he would take her back and would accept the child, but ^ o n left, and did not give her any money. "I had no «o re money to pay for the flat so 1 went to the defendant who took me in and I have stayed with him Sl nce. I am prepared to go back to my husband if he W l " t a ke me." The wife confirmed that she and the defendant had stayed together in a hotel during her Dublin visit. To make amends Answering his counsel, the defendant said he very much regretted what he had done and would like to the plaintiff's family re-united, having on one ccasion taken her to where the plaintiff was living. e was prepared to make what amends he could. He and the wife had relations both in Cork and t n to eir trip to Dublin regardless of the consequences o the wife's marriage. He and the wife were now lv mg as man and wife. to c b a r Smg the jury, the Judge said they were not consider the rights and wrongs as between the P amtiff and his wife nor to consider whether the e ndant was a good or bad person. Their function

was to say how much was to be paid to the plaintiff to make up for what he had lost and the injury he had sustained. The plaintiff had been deprived for the rest of his life of the love and affection that a wife could give to her husband and for that he had to be com- pensated, but they of the jury were not being asked to do anything that would punish the defendant for his wrong-doing. The defendant's regrets did not matter either. , After the jury had brought in their verdict, the Judge granted a defence request for a 21-day stav of execution. He awarded costs to the plaintiff. (Keating v. O'Driscoll—High Court—Gannon J.— unreported—17 January, 1975). New trial awarded in criminal conversation action, when £15,000 damages considered excessive, and various irregularities in Judge's charge condemned. Plaintiff claims damages against the defendant for criminal conversation. Upon the hearing before Murnaghan J. and a jury in Cork in July, 1973, the jury awarded the plaintiff £15,000. The husband, plaintiff, and his wife were married in 1957, and first lived at Bruree, Co. Limerick, where the plaintiff carried on a grocery and business. Two children were born, a daughter in May, 1958, and a son in November, 1960. The plaintiff began to drink to excess, and he had to sell his business in Bruree, and to acquire a similar business in Castletownroche, Co. Cork. Here two more children were born, one in 1962 and the other in 1965. Unfortunately the drink problem persisted, and he had to occasionally undergo treat- ment in hospital for alcoholism. Finally it was decided that he would not continue in the business in Castle- townroche but would start a new career in London. Early in 1966 he went to London, where he obtained work, and eventually set up an office cleaning business of his own. The wife remained in Castletownroche with the children, running the bar and grocery. The defendant was a substantial farmer in the area who patronised the plaintiff's bar. The wife and the defendant gradually became friendly, and the friendli- ness developed into an illicit intimacy, which persisted from 1970 to 1972. In September, 1972, the defendant inherited two farms from uncles who had died. The wife wanted the defendant to fulfil an alleged promise that he should leave his own wife, and go away with her as soon as circumstances permitted. This the defendant refused to do, and thus the full sordid story- was made public. The plaintiff brought the proceedings in September, 1972. At this time, despite the intimacy between the wife and the defendant, the wife continued to run the bar and grocery on behalf of the husband. The wrong done to the husband therefore consisted of the invasion of the privacy of his marriage and of the insult to his honour. There was no question of the loss of his wife's services. The action of "Criminal Conversation" is based on Common Law in both England, until 1857, and Ireland until today. The whole history of criminal conversation 44