Law Report: Case Summaries

The following notes of judgments were prepared by the reporters of the All England Law Reports.

Crime

R v Quarry and anor; CA (Crim Div)(Henry LJ, McCullough, Turner JJ); 26 May 1994.

Although in 9 cases out of 10 it was necessary for a trial judge to sum up the facts of the case for the jury, the failure of the judge to do so in a case where the facts were startling and in part horrific, and involved a world of degradation and violence beyond the normal experience of the jury, was not a material irregularity. The details of the evidence would have been etched on the minds of the jury and the judge rightly took the view that the best way he could assist the jury was by concentrating on their approach to the evidence of the victim.

Jonathan Markson; Russell Houston (Registrar of Criminal Appeals) for the appellants; Anthony Longden (CPS) for the Crown.

Landlord and tenant

Milverton Group Ltd v Warner World Ltd; CA (Glidewell, Kennedy, Hoffmann LJJ); 6 May 1994.

A lessor, who had received from a guarantor of the lessee's covenant to pay rent a payment in consideration of his releasing the guarantor from his obligations under the guarantee, was obliged to give credit for that payment when seeking to enforce against the lessee, whether the original lessee or a lessee by assignment, the covenants to pay rent and other payments.

Mark Warwick (Frere Cholmeley Bischoff) for the appellant; Jonathan Ferris (HM Rose & Co) for the landlord.

Proof

Bank of England v Gibson and others; QBD (Judge Rudd); 26 April 1994.

In a civil case involving an allegation of theft, the civil standard of proof was appropriate, but a greater degree of probability was required where the allegation was more serious. There is no rule in civil law that accomplices cannot corroborate each other.

Anthony Boswood QC and Brian Doctor (Freshfields ) for the bank; Christian Du Cann (F Barnes & Son, Romford); James Wadsworth QC and Bruce Sylvester (Wortley Redmeyne & Kershaw, Chelmsford) for the defendants.

Prostitute

DPP v Bull QBD (DC) (Mann LJ and Laws J); 5 May 1994.

Section 1(1) of the Street Offences Act 1959 by which it is an offence for a common prostitute to loiter or solicit in a street or public place for the purpose of prostitution applies only to female prostitutes. The activities of male prostitutes were excluded from s 1(1).

Jeremy Carter-Manning QC (CPS) for the Crown; Adrian Fulford (Offenbachs) for the defendant.

Monument

R v Bovis Construction Ltd; CA (Crim Div) (Farquharson LJ, Pill, Laws JJ); 5 May 1994.

The defendants were convicted of an offence under s 2 of the Ancient Monuments and Archaelogical Areas Act 1979 of causing works to be executed damaging a scheduled monument. Their appeal was dismissed on the ground that the definition of the scheduled monument contained in the material documents was conclusive for the strict liablity purposes of s 2. It could not be argued that the jury should have been invited to decide the extent of the monument for themselves and had there been any ambiguity in the scheduled monument consent it would have been for the judge to resolve. However, a distinction existed between documents which of themselves conferred legal rights and obligations, which were for the judge to construe as a matter of law and every day documents, which were for the jury to consider.

Simon Goldblatt QC and John Dodd (Masons) for the appellants; Stephen Hockman QC (CPS) for the Crown.