Criminal Law

Question 1

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs v Campbell

Answer 1

Garda went to a cottage owned by the defendant and found a tv without a license for said tv. There was a woman in the cottage instead of the defendant

Question 2

DPP v Foley

Answer 2

Garda found defendants with within reach of a sawed off shot gun, rifle and ammunition.

Question 3

Kilbride v Lake

Answer 3

Kilbride (defendant) drove his wife’s car into the City of Auckland and left it parked with a current warrant of fitness attached to its windscreen. While Kilbride was gone, the warrant had somehow become detached from the windscreen and was lost. Kilbride could not find the warrant when he returned to the car

Question 4

R v Gibbins and Proctor

Answer 4

7-year-old died of starvation due to neglect brought by defendant (Walter Gibbing (father)) and partner (Proctor)

Question 5

R v Stone and Dobinson

Answer 5

Fanny had poor health and moved with her brother (Stone) and his partner for 3 years before she died. She suffered from anorexia and spent all her time in her room which had no ventilation or washing facilities

Question 6

DPP v Joel

Answer 6

Eleanor Joel and her partner Jonathan Costen were convicted of the manslaughter of Joel’s mother Evelyn due to neglect.

Question 7

R v Taktak

Answer 7

The defendant had brought a prostitute, who was nearly unconscious when he collected her, to his heroin dealer’s home, where he tried to resuscitate her but did not call a doctor. When the dealer arrived, he called a doctor, who pronounced the prostitute dead.

Question 8

R v Pittwood

Answer 8

a gatekeeper at a railway crossing was convicted of manslaughter where he failed in his duty to ensure that a gate was closed when a train approached and, as a result, a person was killed

Question 9

R v Dytham

Answer 9

A police officer was found to be criminally liable where he watched a fight outside a nightclub, which resulted in a man’s death, but left the scene so he could go off duty

Question 10

R v Miller

Answer 10

Fell asleep with a cigarette. Mattress caught fire, didn’t put it out.

Question 11

DPP v Bermudez

Answer 11

A police suspect was convicted of aggravated assault where he denied having anything in his pocket and a police officer subsequently pricked her finger on a syringe in the suspect’s pocket

Question 12

AG v McGrath

Answer 12

Mr. White was attacked by the defendant and left on the side of the road, after the doctor who was looking after him left to call the ambulance, a third party group lifted him into a car and drove him into the hospital.

Question 13

DPP v Davis

Answer 13

Brutal assault on a woman called Mary Duke, was struck and repeatedly kicked all over her body and died of heart failure caused by the shock of the assault

Question 14

DPP v O’Loughlin

Answer 14

Convicted of murder of a homeless man, they had argued in the defendant’s apartment, O’Loughlin had assaulted the man and threw him in the communal rubbish shoot and became stuck due to the rubbish that was already stuck inside the shoot, subsequentially dying of suffocation

Question 15

DPP v Outram

Answer 15

Victim was a 90-year-old who was assaulted at his home by the accused when he was robbing his home. He left the scene claiming he was alive when he left but the accused died due to a combination of medical factors, one was a head injury and another was a hip fracture. The cause of death was resulted from a combination of injuries sustained.

Question 16

R v Blaue

Answer 16

‘It has long been the policy of the law that those who use violence on other people must take their victims as they find them.’

Question 17

Dunne v DPP

Answer 17

‘Nor is [causation] broken if the reason for a failure to provide appropriate treatment is a decision by the victim to refuse such treatment’.

Question 18

R v Roberts

Answer 18

‘If of course the victim does something so daft … or so unexpected … that no reasonable man could be expected to foresee it, then it … breaks the chain of causation between the assault and the harm or injury.’

Question 19

R v Williams and Davis

Answer 19

‘It should of course be borne in mind that a victim may in the agony of the moment do the wrong thing’.

Question 20

R v Pagett

Answer 20

A 16-year-old girl who was pregnant was used by her boyfriend as an unwilling shield in a standoff with the police and was killed by a police bullet in the cross-fire.

Question 21

R v Cheshire

Answer 21

Only extraordinary and unusual treatment could constitute an intervening act and, even then, only if the jury was satisfied that it was so significant a cause of death that it overshadowed the original injury.

Question 22

DPP v Douglas and Hayes

Answer 22

Charge of shooting with intent to commit murder. Defendants shot at a cop car. No cops died. Had a cop died they would be guilty of murder however had they not died does not mean they are guilty of intent to commit murder

Question 23

DPP v Cawley

Answer 23

It started with an altercation in a house, there were a number of different people involved and the victim was assaulted in the house and later detained there and subseqeuntly brought in a car to a bog where he was assaulted again and died

Question 24

DPP v McDonagh

Answer 24

Defendant had allegedly stabbed his wife in the back having dragged her apart from her sister with whom she was having a violent altercation.

Question 25

Clifford v DPP

Answer 25

He had an encounter with the guards and he believed that the guards had taken his mobile phone so he turned up at a guard station very drunk and started loudly abusing the guarda and generally engaging in rowdy behaviour

Question 26

DPP v Herda

Answer 26

Convicted of murdering coworker who she claimed had been infatuated with her. At trial prosecution adduced that Herda drove her car into a harbor at speed and victim who was the front seat passenger died from drowning

Question 27

R v Cunningham

Answer 27

Accused tore a gas meter off a cellar wall to steal money and gas seaped into neighbouring house where someone was asleep and they inhested the fumes and were injured as a result.

Question 28

Caldwell Case

Answer 28

Caldwell disliked the owner of the hotel where he worked and set fire to the hotel causing damage to the property when drunk. He was charged with offences including arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered. He argued he was drunk and did not recognise the risk.

Question 29

R v G

Answer 29

The case concerned two boys, aged 11 and 12, who went camping without their parents’ permission. Feeling cold, they set fire to some newspapers in the back yard of a shop thinking that the fire would go out. The fire spread and caused one million pounds worth of damage.

Question 30

DPP v Murray

Answer 30

Capital murder case. A couple, Noel and Marie Murray, were charged with the capital murder of an off-duty Garda officer following an armed bank robbery.

Question 31

DPP v Cagney and McGrath

Answer 31

Originated between two groups of young guys outside a bar, it was late at night and the groups came out had an altercation, moved up the street and then a second altercation ensued

Question 32

DPP v Dunleavy

Answer 32

Taxicab driver Convicted of manslaughter after killing a cyclist while he was driving at night on the wrong side of the road and with no lights on

Question 33

Reilly v Judge Patwell

Answer 33

The area in front of the bar was what they called a ‘litter black spot’, the reason that it was located near a takeaway and council were of the view that there were constantly litter outside the bar

Question 34

McAdam v Dublin United Tramways Co

Answer 34

Overloading an omnibus with passengers against statute regulation. Dangers may result from overloading

Question 35

CC v Ireland

Answer 35

Sections 2 and 3 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2006 introduced the defence of ‘honest mistake’ as to age

Question 36

R v Stringer

Answer 36

Three defendants (father and son and third man) were charged with murder. Defendants chased the victim around the housing estate armed with weapons. Third defendant stabbed the victim at a point in the chase when he had become separated from the first two defendants

Question 37

DPP v Egan

Answer 37

Egan had a garage and was asked to keep a van at his workshop and he admitted that he knew a theft was going to take place

Question 38

DPP v O’Reilly

Answer 38

Robbery of a post office. No evidence defendant was in the post office at any stage but he admitted to driving the getaway van

Question 39

AG’s Reference

Answer 39

Defendant spiked friends drink with more alcohol. The friend then left, drove off in his car and was arrested and subsequently charged with drunken driving

Question 40

R v Calhaem

Answer 40

Defendant was a woman who was infatuated with her lawyer, and she instructed a man to kill the lawyer’s girlfriend. Counselling but looks like procuring.

Question 41

AG v Ryan

Answer 41

Violent confrontation between two groups outside a party.

Question 42

DPP v Jordan and Deegan

Answer 42

Convictions for animal cruelty. Convictions arose out of the presence of the defendants at a remote farm in county Kildare where dogfighting was taking place

Question 43

DPP v Madden

Answer 43

Focus on one particular appellant of three appelants named Cornelius Doyle, he was convicted of aiding and abetting a murder. Evidence of stealing car, wiping fingerprints and confession of knowing the plan.

Question 44

DPP v McAreavey

Answer 44

Shooting at a garage at a topaz petrol station in Dublin. Second defendant bought the petrol and assisted the principal in burning out the car that was used in the attempted murder

Question 45

R v Anderson and Morris

Answer 45

Lord Parker (quoting the submission of Geoffrey Lane QC): ‘Where two persons embark on a joint enterprise, each is liable for the acts done in pursuance of that joint enterprise and that includes liability for unusual consequences if they arise from the execution of the agreed joint enterprise but … if one of the adventurers goes beyond what had been tacitly agreed as part of the common enterprise, his co-adventurer is not liable for the consequences of that unauthorised act.’ Objective pragmatism in this area

Question 46

DPP v Doohan

Answer 46

D was mistreated by his father and paid co accused to carry out a punishment style beating of his father

Question 47

DPP v Cummins and Davy

Answer 47

The two defendants were tried along with a third man. The three consumed drink and drugs, caused criminal damage to a house, and later went to the victim’s house. The victim was found dead in his home having sustained a severe beating. An attempt had been made to burn his body.

Question 48

DPP v Choung Vu

Answer 48

The defendant was convicted of possession and cultivation of cannabis. He was tried in a joint enterprise with two others who had rented a house in Meath to cultivate cannabis. The evidence showed that the defendant had been present at the house and had acquired and delivered supplies.