The Gazette 1967/71

notice, they applied for and obtained an order dismissing the action for want of prosecution. Case 3. In 1960 the Plaintiff issued a writ and delivered a statement of claim alleging conspiracy and fraud. A defence was delivered and the plead ings were closed in 1961. Discovery was completed by the end of 1963 and the plaintiff's solicitors there after did little to proceed with the action. The defendant being a company was dissolved in 1965 and an amended statement of claim was delivered. In 1967 the defendant applied for and obtained an order for the dismissal of the action for want of prosecution. Held that the appeals be dismissed in cases 1 and 3 as the plaintiff solicitors had been guilty of inordinate delay; the plaintiffs would be left to the remedies against the solicitors; that the appeal in case 2 be allowed in as much as the defendants themselves had been guilty of inordinate delay. (Alien v. Sir Alfred McAlpine & Sons; Bostic v. Bermondsey & Southwark Group Hospital Man agement Committee; Sternberg v. Hammond (1968) 2 W.L.R. 366; [1968] 1 All E.R. 543 C.A.) Income Tax—A Tax-free car? An employee who was given free use of a car by his employer in return for a reduction in his wage was not liable to tax under schedule E on his gross wage before subtracting the sum in respect of the car, or on the value of the use of the car since it was not converted into money. The employer introduced a voluntary car loan scheme for such of their employees who earned less than £2,000 a year and were not directors. The employers bought, insured and licensed the cars, and lent them to employees who applied for them. A sum of money varying according to the type of car was then subtracted from the weekly wage of those employees. The tax payer joined the scheme in 1961 and on his being lent the car a sum of £2. 9. 0. was subtracted from his wage. Held— (1) The transaction was a contract for the pay ment of the wage less an amount to be calculated in arriving at that wage, and not two contracts, one for the payment of the wage, and an entirely separate one for the deduction of the amount from that, wage after it had been calculated. The sum

deducted was thereore not part of the taxable gross wage. (2) The tax payer could not convert the use of the car to money by selling or letting it on hire since that was forbidden. Admittedly the tax payer could turn the use of the car into money by sur rendering it and resuming his original wage, but this was not converting the use of the car into money within the meaning of schedule E. (Heaton [Inspector of Taxes] v. Bell. Court of Appeal, Times May 9th, 1968. Criminal Law, Sentence Unconstitutional An absolute order of habeas corpus was granted in the High Court to W. who was serving a sentence of penal servitude in Portlaoise Prison and it was ordered that he be released. W. had challenged the legality of his detention and had been granted an order of habeas corpus in December, 1967. He had also lodged an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal but later served notice of abandonment. On March 14th the Court of Criminal Appeal held that notwithstanding the note of abandon ment it still had seisin of the appeal and made an order varying the sentence imposed by Mr. Justice Butler to one of four years penal servitude. It was argued on behalf of W. that the warrant of the Central Criminal Court and the warrant of the Court of Criminal Appeal under which he was being held in Portlaoise Prison were bad. It was held by Mr. Justice Henchy that the jurisdiction of the Court of Criminal Appeal was limited in that neither the prosecution nor the Court itself set its jurisdiction in motion in any particular case. The convicted person may do so in any one of three ways (i) he may apply for an enlargement of time within which to serve notice of appeal or notice of application for leave to appeal; (ii) he may serve notice of application for leave to appeal or (iii) he may serve notice of appeal. Having taken one of these steps if he did not wish to proceed he has an absolute and un qualified right to abandon his application or appeal; once exercised this right debars him from further prosecuting his case before the Court and from this it follows as a necessary corollary that the Court no longer has any jurisdiction to deal with the case. To hold otherwise would be to hold that it may dispose of his case in his absence which 15,