Attorney General v Ball

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1936
• Date: 01 January 1936
• Court: Central Criminal Court (Ireland)

[C. Crim. Ct., I.F.S.]

Attorney-General

and

Ball

"Reconstruction" -Corpus delicti - Dead body not found - Onus of proof.

The accused was indicted for matricide. He made a statement to the effect that his mother had in her bed committed suicide with a safety razor and that he had put her body into the sea. A bloodstained hatchet was found in the house occupied by accused and deceased, and a very large amount of blood was splashed about various parts of the premises. Photographs taken of the positions of the hatchet before the disappearance of the accused's mother as reconstructed by a witness who last saw it before her disappearance and of the position of the hatchet after deceased had disappeared as reconstructed by the person who first found it after, the disappearance, were tendered as evidence for the prosecution. Held, (1) that there was evidence...