The Gazette 1993

SEPTEMBER 1993

GAZETTE

| offers a very useful guide through the j labyrinthine provisions of the Children j Act, 1908. | The December 1992 edition covers ] issues ranging from the plea of self j ! defence in homicide cases to the privilege against self-incrimination and from the Military Courts-Martial to i reflections on the role of the Attorney ] General in the Patrick Ryan affair. It also contains some 50 pages of case notes, which are reproduced by permission of the Irish Times. This Digest facility, introduced in the December 1991 issue, is of inestimable value to the busy practitioner, summarising, as it does, the leading j criminal cases of the year. i | Tribunal might at first glance seem out ! An article on Goodman -v- The Beef of place in a criminal law journal, j However, the article reviews the I decisions of the High Court and Supreme Court on the challenge to The | Beef Tribunal, on the grounds, inter alia, that the enquiry constituted a 1 criminal trial in all but name. The author concludes on a note of caution that public enquiries may displace the courts from their position of centrality j j and thereby undermine their value. The article on self-defence in homicide cases I have mentioned illustrates the value of a publication such as the Journal. The author examines the plea i of self-defence since the landmark decision of the Supreme Court in i Dwyer. The central question addressed in that case was whether the plea of | self-defence to a murder charge would lie where an unreasonable amount of | force was used, which the accused ! nonetheless honestly believed was | reasonable. In Dwyer the Supreme Court adopted a "half-way house" by j stating that in such a circumstance the ! appropriate verdict was manslaughter, í The author criticises the decision on a number of grounds; that the test that j ! must be applied as to the reasonable- ness of the force used and the honesty of the accused's belief is too complex i and requires the jury to apply an unreal and artificial reasoning process to j | questions of fact, that it fails to take account of developments in the doctrine of mens rea since the English decision ' Continued on page 272

Irish Criminal Law Journal

The Kilkenny Incest Case

i Edited by Shane Murphy, Round j Hall Press, subscription £35.00 p.a. 2 I issues per year, (approx. 250pp). 1 The Irish Criminal Law Journal was launched in June, 1991. In his Foreword to the first issue Mr. Justice I Hugh O 'Flaherty referred to the i. mixture of the theoretical and the practical aspects of the criminal law which was to be found in that issue. He commended the fact that a number of the contributors were no"effete academics but hardened gladiators of the forensic arena". It is clear that this vital mixture of the practical and theoretical has continued in the three ; issues of the Journal published since then. The range of topics covered in S the four issues has also been impressive. The first issue alone includes articles on the adequacy of the remedy of Presidential Pardon in miscarriage of justice cases, the new ! offences created by the Larceny Act, | 1990, the distinction between criminal and civil libel, causation in the law of homicide, intoxication and criminal responsibility, the effect of ESDA evidence and issues raised by the introduction of DNA profiling. This latter article on DNA profiling is wide ranging and informative. However, some of the language used may be off-putting to criminal law practitioners. For example, there are references to "the investigative and adjudicative paradigm" and "the verity of the objective/forensic equation". Such expressions may be too rich for the more prosaic palate of the j practitioner. This illustrates the j difficulty of combining in one journal I the practical and academic approaches | to the study of criminal law. It is unfortunate that this difficulty should í arise because if a practitioner were to overcome his prejudice against the use of what he might consider to be opaque language, he would find in the article on DNA profiling much that is helpful and stimulating. However, I suspect j that he is more likely to turn to an j article such as that on the custodial j treatment for young offenders, ' contained in the same issue, which

By Kieron Wood, Poolbeg Press, Dublin, 1993,165pp. paperback £4.99

Everyone has read or heard the reports of the Kilkenny incest case. They will also have read or heard the unreserved and universal condemnation from all quarters of our society at the failure to take notice. In the course of their work, many j lawyers will have heard and dealt with cases of beating, sexual abuse and terror in family homes. But even knowing the story of this case, and even being hardened by hearing stories of horror before, this book, which tells just the girl victim's story, has the power to shock, to sicken and to anger; more for the unremitting nature of the brutal assaults and for the senseless cruelties inflicted by her father than for the spectacular incidents which hit the headlines. The child was ten when her father first raped her. That incident is recounted on page 21 of this book and the remaining 144 pages tell in plain and simple language the brutality and cruelty that this girl endured, the fear and the influences that kept her from complaining and the determined closing of eyes and ears in the community to her screams and battered, broken body. She also explains her continuing fears today, giving her a patrimony of a life sentence of fear. correspondent at RTE. The style is reminiscent of a detailed statement ! taken by a solicitor which has been | edited for the purposes of a brief to í counsel. Mr. Wood offers no comment [ other than in a prologue. None is I necessary. The story stands on its own j as an indictment and incentive to change and to care, by all of us in this, our modern Ireland. The book is the girl's story as told to Kieron Wood, the legal affairs

Noeline Blackwell

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