The Gazette 1975

of their own well-known textbook. Insofar as they have to refer to an extract from a case, it will only be printed once in the text. In considering the defence of duress, apart from the recent Northern Ireland case of Lynch, (1975), the case of R. v. Hudson & Taylor — (1971) 2 All E.R. — where two girls deliberately failed to identify a man on a charge of wounding them, on the ground that they would be slashed if they told the truth. The Judge refused to leave the defence of duress to the jury, and they were subsequently convicted of perjury. The Court of Criminal Appeal held that duress should have been put as a defence to the jury, and allowed the appeal. Another case in which the appeal was allowed was that of Jordan — (1956) 40 Crim. App. Repts. Jordan stabbed a man in a cafe in Hull on 4 May 1956 and this man died on May 12. The pathologist stated that the cause of death was broncho-pneumonia following pene- trating abdominal injury. A successful application was made to the Court of Criminal Appeal to call t\yo eminent doctors to the effect that the wound was not the cause of death. The Privy Council decision of Edwards — (1973) 1 All E.R. — deserves mention. The accused followed Dr. Coombes from Australia to Hong Kong intending to blackmail him. There he went to see Coombes in his hotel bedroom, and Coombes attacked him with a knife, inflicting several wounds on him. The accused then wrested the knife from Coom- bes, and stabbed him severely in a fit of temper. He was convicted of murder in the Hong Kong High Court, as the Chief Justice had directed that the defence of provocation was not available. The Court of Appeal held this was a misdirection, but upheld the conviction on the ground that no miscarriage of justice had occurred. The Privy Council reduced the conviction to manslaughter, because the defences of provocation and self-defence should have been put to the jury, though the defence of self-defence seldom in fact succeeds. The extraordinary case of Hyam — (1974) 2 All E.R. — in which a woman set fire to a house, by pouring a tin of petrol into it, in order to kill three children and another woman, who was an alleged rival of her lover, was held by a majority of the House of Lords to be manslaughter, and not murder. A more surprising case is Shannon — (1974) 2 All E.R. — where the House of Lords restored a conviction for conspiracy, although the co-conspirator had been acquitted. The House of Lords also reversed the Court of Criminal Appeal in Dott — (1973) 3 All E .R.; here the American accused had been convicted of conspiracy to import drugs, but acquitted in the Court of Appeal. In Haughton v. Smith — (1973) 3 All E.R. — the House of Lords also restored a conviction of attempting to handle stolen goods dishonestly; the curious circumstance was that policemen were hidden in the van containing the stolen goods, and thus had no trouble in arresting the receivers. The text is illustrated by ample questions to be answered by students, which greatly enhances its value. The learned authors are to be congratulated upon having selected a most readable material on criminal law. Kemp (David I.), Turriff (Derrick), Moxom (John M.) and Seymour (Richard W.)—The Quantum of Dam- ages in Personal Injury and Fatal Injury Claims. Two volumes. Fourth edition. Vol. I : Law and Practice in Fatal Accident Awards. 8vo. Pp. xxxiii, 431. Vol. II, Loose Leaf : Awards listed according to type of injury .274

to bear the name of our patron saint. This was due to lack of numbers being committed by the Courts to Borstal which resulted in the Minister for Justice trans- ferring to Clonmel young adult prisoners already com- mitted to ordinary prisons. The mixing of the long- terms Borstal detainees and the shorter term ordinary prisoners meant that the original idealistic concept of providing proper educational and vocational training was frustrated. The system, however, still operates in Northern Ireland, at Woburn, and in the United Kingdom. The legal death of the Borstal system took place with the passing of the Criminal Justice Act, 1960, which abolished once and for all the term "Borstal". The situ- ation in S. Patrick's Institution in Dublin since 1956 and the recent introduction of the more humane "open" institutions at Shanganagh Castle, Shankill, Co. Dublin, and Loughan House, County Cavan, are described in detail by the author. His concluding chapters, which are the more inter- esting parts of the book, contain the author's own views and comments on the Borstal system with comparisons between the system in the North and in the South after partition. An interesting fact that emerges in the comparison between the two systems is that in the North, corporal punishment in Borstal institutions has been permitted since 1930, but it was never allowed in the South or in the United Kingdom, although dietary punishment was permitted in the South. The author quotes one Northern M.P. during the debate on the Bill permitting corporal punishment as saying t ha t: "Two or three licks of the cane or a punch on the nose is a more apt punishment than a starvation diet or a transfer to an ordinary prison." Borstal in Ireland is a basic book on a subject on which little or nothing has been written to date. It is, therefore, an essential reference book for everyone inter- ested in the penal system, whether lawyers, social workers, legislators, humanitarians, ex-Borstal boys, or simply fans of Brendan Behan. Knowledge of what went before is an essential pre-requisite to anyone seeking to change the law relating to our prison system and to persons convicted of crimes. Mr. Osborough is to be complimented on his work, as also is the Institute of Public Administration, who published it, and UCD (where Mr. Osborough is Dean of the Faculty of Law), the Arthur Cox Foun- dation and the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland, who helped financially. The author at times quotes Edmund Burke in his book—Burke, whom someone described as "oft quoted but little read". I hope Mr. Osborough's book will be both "oft" quoted and "oft" read. Michael M. O'Mahony Smith (J. C.) and Hogan (Brian)— Criminal Law: Cases and Materials. 8vo. Pp. xxviii, 672. London, But- terworth, 1975. £7.60 limp; £12.00 bound. This learned voume, written by two expert Professors of Criminal Law, follows the American pattern of con- sidering a law subject by relating it to extracts from cases, from relevant textbooks, and from relevant cita- tions. This system has been developed in English univer- sities relatively recently, and is far more interesting and stimulating than being confined to a dry textbook. In discussing the various crimes, they refer to the pages