The Gazette 1967/71

(3) As a new principle had to be decided, a fee of 3 guineas for obtaining the general opinion of Counsel would be allowed. (4) The Taxing Master originally allowed an instruc tions fee of £50 in respect of the appeal to the prosecution and this was subsequently increased to £105. It was held that the sum of £105 was reasonable having regard to the fact that, in the forefront of this appeal, was the fundamental question whether an appeal lay to the Supreme Court. (5) The prosecutor's solicitor was found to proceed to brief counsel on the appeal on the basis that the appeal was going to proceed on the same lines as in the High Court, and the onus that the same documents would be required lay upon the pro secutor's counsel. (6) Originally, the Taxing Master allowed on the appeal a brief fee of 100 guineas and refreshers of 25 guineas for two senior counsel with appro priate fees for one junior counsel. This was sub sequently increased to a brief fee of 125 guineas, and refreshers of 40 guineas for senior counsel. The fees, as marked by senior counsel, were 200 guineas on the brief, with refreshers of 75 guineas. The total actual amount allowed by the Taxing Master was thus 913 guineas. Held that the amount allowed by the Taxing Master should not be dis turbed, as it was impossible to be dogmatic in respect of any particular fee which was discre tionary. (7) It was held that the fee of 6 guineas allowed by the Taxing Master to each Counsel for hearing the judgment of the Supreme Court was reason able. A fixed fee for hearing of a judgment, no matter how long is of such long standing that its retention should be favoured. The State (Michael Browne) v. District Justice Feran (No. 2)—Murnaghan J.—29th April, 1969—unreported. The Court upheld the decision of a trial judge in admitting evidence by a detective put by the police in a cell next to those occupied by the appellant and a co-prisoner. Such direction should be exercised on a consideration of the motive for the eavesdropping and the substance of the conversation overheard. Regina v. Stewart, Court of Appeal, 13/1/70. A chairman of quarter sessions who announced a sentence of six months eried when he altered it to seven months in order to circumvent the provisions of section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1967, which require that a sentence of not more than six months should be suspended. Regina v. Corr, Court of Appeal, 15/1/70. The Lord Chief Justice said in the Court of Appeal that a quarter sessions court which substitutes a suspended sentence of imprisonment on appeal should take into consideration the time the appellant has spent in custody, and in appropriate cases should adjust the length of the suspended sentence. Court of Appeal Eng. 19/1/70. Crime

Where a sentence has been suspended and a further offence has been committed during the period of the suspension, the fact that the further offence is of a dif ferent character from the original offence is no ground for net bringing the suspended sentence into effect. Regina v. Saunders, Court of Appeal, 16/2/70. Two offences can constitute a " series'' within the Indictments Act, 1915, Schedule i, rule 3, and "nexus" is a feature of similarity which, in all the circumstances of the case, enables the offence to be described as a series, their Lordships decided when unanimously dis missing an appeal by Edward Loftus, who had been convicted on two counts which had been tried together. He was convicted at the Central Criminal Court of attempted larceny at a public house in Acton, on August 20, 1968, and of robbery with violence at another public house in the same area on September 5 that year, for which he was sentenced to six months and a con secutive 18 months. Ludlow v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner, House of Lords, 12/2/70. Damages Although by English law no damages can be awarded for the grief or sorrow caused by another's death, or for a mother's worry about her children, or her difficulty in adjusting herself to a new way of life after her husband's death, damages are recoverable for the medical effects, the nervous shock, of seeing his death. Hinz v. Berry, Court of Appeal, 15/1/70. The House of Lords, affirming an award of over £54,000 damages under the Fatal Accidents Acts, laid down the lines on which such damages should be assessed. Their Lordships decided that an award of damages for a widow's loss of dependency should be increased to take account of her income tax factor, and expressed differing views on the relevance of inflation. Lord Pearson said that the price of an annuity was not the correct measure of the sum a widow should receive as damages. They also considered that the orthodox approach of judges to the assessment of damages was correct if it resulted in very high awards. Taylor v. O'Connor, House of Lords, 21/1/70. Defamation A scientific paper published in the British Medical Journal which was critical of a technique for dental anaesthesia introduced, used and recommended by a named dental surgeon was held by a majority of the Court to be capable of bearing a meaning defamatory of the surgeon in the way of his profession and that it should not therefore be struck out in limine as disclosing no reasonable cause of action. Lord Denning, in a dissenting judgment, expressed fears that such a decision might deter scientists from publishing the results of their research, but his fears were thought by Sir Gordon Willmer to be unfounded. Drummond Jackscn v. British Medical Association and Others, Court of Appeal, 13/2/70. 102