R v Ireland [1970] HCA 21

High Court of Australia Barwick C.J. McTiernan, Windeyer, Owen and Walsh JJ. R v Ireland [1970] HCA 21

ORDER Special leave to appeal refused with costs.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

July 3 Barwick C.J.

The Attorney-General of the State of South Australia seeks special leave to appeal against a decision of the Supreme Court of South Australia sitting as a Court of Criminal Appeal [2] by which that Court set aside the conviction of the respondent for murder and ordered a new trial of the charge against him. The Solicitor-General of the State of South Australia who appeared on the application placed before the Court and fully argued all the submissions which he would advance in support of an appeal, if special leave should be granted. The Court was thus in a position at the close of argument on the application for special leave to decide whether it would allow an appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court, if it granted special leave to appeal. Being satisfied after considering all that was advanced in argument before it, that it would not have allowed such an appeal, the Court on the conclusion of argument announced that it would refuse special leave on the ground that an appeal brought in pursuance of it would fail. The Court then indicated that it would in due course reduce to writing its reasons for its decision to refuse special leave to appeal.

1. [1970] S.A.S.R. 416.

The female licensee of an hotel in the City of Adelaide was murdered by stabbing with a household knife or knives between 9.30 and 10.30 p.m. on the night of Sunday, 16th November 1969. Her body was found on the morning of Monday, 17th November, on the floor of the kitchen of her hotel lying face upwards, death having occurred by bleeding, somewhere about half to one hour after the stabbing. A great deal of blood was beneath and around the body. Amongst the knives found in a drawer in the kitchen three on examination showed traces of human blood protein and the handle of one of them was broken. There was evidence from which it could be concluded that on the preceding Saturday the handle of that knife had been intact. The suggestion at the trial was that this knife, which could have been a weapon with which the deceased was stabbed, when being so used had come in contact with the backbone of the deceased with sufficient force to cause the handle to break.