The Gazette 1971

Local Authorities Solicitors' Association

The annual general meeting of the Association was held in the Solicitors' Buildings, Four Courts, Dublin, on 2nd April 1971. The following officers were elected: Chairman, Mr. D. M. F. Walsh. Hon. Secretary /Treasurer, Mr. M. J. Leech. Committee, Messrs T. Murphy, P. A. Fitzpatrick, D. Loftus, D. King and H. Murray. The President of the Incorporated Law Society, Mr. Brendan A. McGrath, attended the meeting and addressed the members.

Mr. Brendan Kiernan, Barrister-at-Law, legal adviser to the Department of Local Government, was also present. The President of the Incorporated Law Society, Mr. McGrath; the Secretary of the Incorporated Law Society, Mr. E. Plunkett, and Mr. Brendan Kiernan, Barrister- at-Law, were guests of the Association at a lunch before the annual general meeting. The Association represents whole-time salaried solici- tors in the local government service and precepting bodies.

Court Ban on Millionaire's £200,000 Mr. Geraldo Hochschild, the Chilian copper magnate, was recently banned by a London Divorce Court judge from taking £200,000 out of Britain. The money is from the sale of his home in Gheyne Walk, London, the former house of the painter, James Whistler. children are, and the house in Cheyne Walk," said Mr. Phelan. "He is of very considerable wealth, with assets cal- culated at over ten million dollars and an income of a million dollars tax free." 'Substantial Sum'

The temporary order was made by Sir Shirley Worthington-Evans, on the ex-parte application of Mr. Hochschild's wife, Mrs. Annabelle Frances Serena Hochschild, a former debutante, of Luttrells, Fawley, near Southampton. Her counsel, Mr. Andrew Phelan, said that divorce proceedings had been started. The couple married in 1961 and had three children, now aged nine, eight and five. "Mr. Hochschild is a multi-millionaire now staying at the Hotel Meurice, Paris, and his only assets in England are the house in Fawley, where the wife and

His assets were in Belgium, Switzerland, the United States and Nassau. The Gheyne Walk house, recently sold for £200,000, had contents valued at another £100,000, he went on. Mrs. Hochschild feared that this substantial sum was in imminent danger of being taken out of the country, prejudicing claims she had been advised to make on behalf of herself and the children. Mrs. Hochschild was formerly Annabelle Drummond a banker's daughter. The judge's order will be effective for three weeks.

Big Increase in Cases of Arson The number of people who start seridus fires "just for kicks" is increasing and yesterday an Appeal Court judge referred to the crime as "quite terrifying" and increasing in gravity.

There were 2,276 cases known to the police. This was 412 more cases than in 1968. The number of people with no criminal records who start fires out of boredom or because they get excited by them was commented on in the Appeal Court bv Lord Justice Edmund Davies. He said that arson was "now rife". The judge was hearing an appeal for a reduction of sentence from five years to three years on a Peterborough man who started five fires "for excitement". The court upheld the sentence imposed on the man at Nottingham Assizes in July last year. Dismissing the appeal against sentence, the Appeal Judge who sat with Lord Justice Karminski and Mr. Justice Melford Stevenson said : "Arson is becoming a rife and prevalent offence in this country. "Arsonists are frequently not detected. The loss to property is enormous and the threat to life considerable." The Daily Telegraph (17th March 1971) 9.")

Home Office figures on arson show "a marked and definite increase" in both the numbers of people found guilty of arson and in the cases of arson known to the police. Between 1950 and 1954 the annual average number of cases of arson known to the police was 580. Between 1955 and 1959 the average went up to 770 cases and between 1960-64 there were 1.127 cases recorded. The Home Office figures show that the incidence of arson is increasing faster than ever in recent years. In 1965 they recorded 1,564 cases. In 1969—the last year for which figures are available —the number of people convicted for arson was 613 men and 33 women.