Jennings v Quinn and Another

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 28 July 1968
• Date: 28 July 1968
• Docket Number: [1966. No. 1018 P.]
• Court: Supreme Court

(S.C.)

Jennings

and

Quinn and Another

Whether lawful - Extradition - Power of arrest - Power to detain goods - Power to deliver to English police.

The plaintiff had been arrested in Ireland and extradited to England pursuant to the provisions of Part III of the Extradition Act, 1965. The Irish police had seized, at the time of the arrest, certain goods which were then in the possession of the plaintiff. The plaintiff sued the defendants, who were police officers, in the High Court for the return of the goods and he applied for an interlocutory injunction restraining the defendants from parting with their possession of the goods pending the trial of the action. There was evidence that some of the goods had been stolen in England. Held by the Supreme Court ( Ó Dálaigh C.J., Walsh and O'Keeffe JJ.), 1, that the police have power, when effecting a lawful arrest, to seize, without a search warrant, goods in the possession or custody of the person arrested if they believe that it is necessary to do so in order to prevent the abstraction or destruction of the goods and if the goods are: —(a) evidence in support of the criminal charge on foot of which the arrest was made, or (b) evidence in support of any other criminal charge against the person arrested then being contemplated, or (c) reasonably believed to be stolen property or to be property which is unlawfully in the possession of the person arrested; 2, that such goods may be retained by the police for use at the trial of the person arrested, or of any other person or persons, on any criminal charge in which the goods are to be used as evidence in support of the charge or charges; and that thereafter they should be returned to the person from whom they were seized, unless their disposal otherwise has been...