Dental Board v O'Callaghan

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 31 January 1969
• Date: 31 January 1969
• Docket Number: [1968. No. 321 SS.]
• Court: High Court

(H.C.)

Dental Board

and

O'Callaghan

Agent provocateur -Corroboration - Whether agent provocateur must be treated as an accomplice - Dentists Act, 1928 (No. 25 of 1928), ss. 45, 47.

The complainant Board was authorised by s. 47 of the Dentists Act, 1928, to prosecute persons for offences under that Act. At the hearing in the District Court of a complaint that the defendant had practised dentistry contrary to the provisions of s. 45 of the Act of 1928, the only evidence in support of the charge was given by one of the Board's inspectors who, being authorised by the Board to do so, had invited the services of the defendant without revealing to him that the inspector was engaged in an investigation on behalf of the Board to detect contraventions of the Act of 1928. The District Justice, being of opinion that the inspector had acted as an accomplice in the commission of the alleged offence and that in law the evidence of an accomplice must be regarded as unreliable unless corroborated, dismissed the complaint but stated a Case for the opinion of the High Court on the question whether he was correct in law in so doing. Held by Butler J. in remitting the Case 1, that, even if the inspector must be regarded as having been an accomplice in the commission of the alleged offence, the evidence of the inspector should not have been rejected merely because there had not been any corroborative evidence; the relevant tribunal, while bearing in mind the danger of convicting on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice, may so convict where the circumstances are such as to satisfy...