People (Attorney General) v McClure

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Court: Court of Criminal Appeal
• Judgment Date: 13 June 1945
• Date: 13 June 1945

The People (Attorney-General) v. McClure.

THE PEOPLE (at the suit of the Attorney-General)

and

ROBINSON McCLURE (1)

Court of Criminal Appeal.

Criminal law - Appeal against sentence - Charge of gross indecency - Offence admitted by accused - First offence - Accused a man of exceptionally high character - Medical evidence - Severity of sentence - Sentence reduced.

A sentence of fifteen calendar months imprisonment with hard labour which had been imposed by the Circuit Court Judge upon the accused, who had pleaded guilty to a charge of gross indecency, was reduced by the Court of Criminal Appeal to a suspensory sentence of six months imprisonment with hard labour, the sentence not to be executed upon the accused entering into his own recognizance of £100 to be of good behaviour for two years.

The appellant was 33 years of age and this was his first offence. There were also special facts affecting his family and his marital relations which the Court of Criminal Appeal considered tended to support the opinions of two doctors who gave evidence that his act was an isolated aberration and that there was a promising prospect that it would not be repeated.

But even without the medical evidence and the family circumstances, the sole fact that this offence was the first one on the part of a man 33 years of age, together with the testimony given that, apart from this offence, he bore an exceptionally high character, would alone justify the Court's disapprobation of the severity of the sentence imposed.

Criminal Appeal.

This was an application for leave to appeal against the sentence of fifteen calendar months imprisonment with hard labour which had been imposed upon the accused by the Circuit Court Judge (Judge Wyse Power) on a charge of gross indecency to which the accused had pleaded guilty.

After the accused had pleaded guilty in the Circuit Court, the following evidence was given.

Inspector Kingston, of the Civic Guard, testified that the accused came of a very respectable family and had never come under the notice of the police before. He stated that the accused had a wife and two children, one of whom was an invalid from birth.

John O'Hagan, Managing Director of the firm where the accused was employed, stated that he had known the accused for sixteen years and that he had been secretary of the firm for eleven years. He stated that he could say nothing except the very best about the accused and that when he (the Managing Director) was...