People (Attorney General) v Goulding

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1964
• Date: 01 January 1964
• Court: Court of Criminal Appeal

(C.C.A.)

People (Attorney-General)

and

Goulding

Evidence - Visual identification -Adequacy of judge's warning to jury - Inadvertent admission of evidence that accused had committed another offence on same evening - Definition of "wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm"- Onus of proof.

The applicant was charged on two counts under sections 18 and 20 of the Offences against the Person Act, 1861. The charges arose out of attacks on two women on the night of the 16th September, 1963, in the City of Dublin. One woman was attacked at 8.30 p.m. by being struck in the hip with a sharp instrument by a man, whom she alone purported to identify as the applicant. At 10.30 p.m., on the same night another woman was struck in the right thigh in much the same way. This woman and two girls who accompanied her purported to identify the applicant as the attacker. The trial Judge, in charging the jury in respect of the first victim, among other things warned them that it was unsafe and dangerous to convict on the uncorroborated evidence of one person. In dealing with the second victim the trial Judge told the jury: "Here you are back again to the question of identification. In this case there is some corroboration. There is some corroboration of the evidence of [the victim] if you accept the evidence of her friends."Held, that the trial Judge's warning on identification was unsatisfactory and fell short of...