Whelan v National City Bank Ltd ; Attorney General v Whelan

JurisdictionIreland
Judgment Date20 December 1934
Date20 December 1934
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeal (Irish Free State)
[C. C. A., I.F.S.]
Attorney-General
and
Whelan

Crime admitted - Crime alleged to have been committed under threats from armed thief - Defence of duress per minas - Whether amounting to a justification - Limits of such defence.

Threats of immediate death or serious personal violence so great as to overbear the ordinary power of human resistance should be accepted as a justification for acts which would otherwise be criminal. But the application of this general rule must be subject to certain...

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22 cases
  • DPP v Gleeson
    • Ireland
    • Supreme Court
    • 1 November 2018
    ...that defence was pleaded, and he further stated that there had been no reported case on the matter in then recent years; AG v Whelan [1934] IR 518. Since then, the authorities, and resulting academic commentary, have burgeoned. Many of the relevant decisions and texts have been argued on th......
  • Dunne v DPP
    • Ireland
    • Supreme Court
    • 11 May 2016
    ...Court of Criminal Appeal on duress 101 In its decision on the appeal, the Court referred to the decision in Attorney General v. Whelan [1934] I.R. 518, in which, in the course of a discussion about the general availability of duress as a defence the Court of Criminal Appeal had said: ?The a......
  • DPP for Northern Ireland v Lynch
    • United Kingdom
    • House of Lords
    • 12 March 1975
    ...expressions used it would not be appropriate to treat what was said as being a comprehensive statement of principle. 29 A.-G. v. Whelan [1934] I.R. 518 there was a charge of receiving goods knowing them to have been stolen. A special question was left to the jury as follows: — "In receivin......
  • The King v Anna Rowan – a pseudonym
    • Australia
    • High Court
    • 13 March 2024
    ...146 FLR 369 at 371 per Crispin J. 36 Lorenz (1998) 146 FLR 369 at 377. 37 Hurley [1967] VR 526 at 543. 38 Attorney-General v Whelan [1934] IR 518 at 526 per Murnaghan 39 Abusafiah (1991) 24 NSWLR 531 at 545 per Hunt J, Gleeson CJ and Mahoney JA agreeing. 40 See Taiapa (2009) 240 CLR 95 at 1......
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4 books & journal articles
  • Necessity as a Defence to Murder: An Anglo-Canadian Perspective
    • United Kingdom
    • Sage Journal of Criminal Law, The No. 78-4, August 2014
    • 1 August 2014
    ...primarily the values thatcompeting rights to life promote and it provides reasons to act to secure94 See Attorney-General vWhelan [1934] IR 518, Irish CCA, where Murnaghan J stated thatduress is a defence because ‘… threats of immediate death or serious personal violenceso great as to overb......
  • The Paradox of Disallowing Duress as a Defence to Murder
    • United Kingdom
    • Sage Journal of Criminal Law, The No. 78-1, February 2014
    • 1 February 2014
    ...653. This, however, was overruled by R v Howe [1987] 1 AC 417. In Ireland, duress remains a common law defence. Attorney-General v Whelan [1934] IR 518 conf‌irmed that duress is not available as a defence to the crime of murder. Ireland considered the defences of duress and necessity in the......
  • CONSIDERATIONS OF TIME AND SPACE IN DURESS
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Journal No. 2004, December 2004
    • 1 December 2004
    ...Criminal Law of Queensland (J Jerrard, B Butler & M Shanahan eds, Butterworths, 10th Ed, 1997), pp 110—111. 22 Attorney-General v Whelan [1934] IR 518 at 526 per Murnaghan J. See further, P Charleton, P McDermott & M Bolger, Criminal Law (Butterworths, 1999) pp 1087—1088. 23 Thomson v H M A......
  • The Contours of the Right to Self-Defence: Is the Requirement of Imminence Merely a Translator for the Concept of Necessity?
    • United Kingdom
    • Sage Journal of Criminal Law, The No. 72-2, April 2008
    • 1 April 2008
    ...Dressler, above n. 44 at 1337.56 E. Caird, The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, vol. 2 (James Maclehose & Sons:Glasgow, 1889) 319.57 [1934] IR 518 at 524.58 Blackstone, Commentaries IV 30, cited in Smith and Hogan, above n. 21 at 311.59 (1969) 53 Cr App R 569.60 [1975] AC 653.61 (1976)......