Noted, but not Invariably Approved

J R Spencer

• Publisher: Hart Publishing
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781849466714
• eBook ISBN: 9781782255994
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

John Spencer has worked at Cambridge University for over 40 years. He has lectured, supervised – and entertained – students in tort, contract, crime, medical law and criminal procedure and evidence. This book is a tribute to Professor Spencer, but it is different from the usual tribute in that it contains case notes written and selected by the author himself and all published in the Cambridge Law Journal (CLJ) between 1970 and 2013. With the exception of one note, which is somewhat longer, the articles are taken from the case note section of the CLJ which, until fairly recently, imposed a strict word limit of 1000 words and no more (the complexity of the cases and the prolixity of the judges led to the CLJ relaxing this rule to 1500 words). The case notes reproduced here provide a master-class in the writing of incisive, engaging notes. Written with students in mind but also intended for the consumption and edification of a wider audience, these case notes epitomise the way in which Professor Spencer has, for 43 years, cajoled, lambasted and encouraged the judiciary to see things his way.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Tribute
• Foreword
• The Rescuer as Defendant – Reversal of Roles
• Rescuer as Defendant – Reversal of Roles Reversed
• Widening Scope of Defence of Contributory Negligence
• Trespassers will be Prosecuted – Wooden Lie Comes True
• Criminal Trespass – Wooden Lies Reach the House of Lords
• Belt up! – The Widening Scope of Contributory Negligence
• Ask for it, Get it, and Sue for it – Provocation and Contributory Negligence
• Kidnapping – The Crime Backs Down on its Demands
• Tissue Donors: Are they Rescuers, or Merely Volunteers?
• Blasphemous Libel Resurrected – Gay News and Grim Tidings
• Lies, Damned Lies, and Corroboration
• Dishonesty: What the Jury Thinks the Defendant Thought the Jury Would Have Thought
• Retrials, Reason and the House of Lords
• Theft – Appropriation and Consent
• On Contemplating the Range of Contemplation
• Precedent and Criminal Cases in the House of Lords
• Duty of Common Humanity to Bees
• Murder in the Dark
• Murder in the Dark: A Glimmer of Light?
• Flooding, Fault and Private Nuisance
• The Evidence of Little Children
• Citizens Arrest – At their Peril
• Causal Links and Congenital Disabilities
• Involuntary Intoxication as a Defence
• Freedom to Denounce your Fellow Citizens to the Police
• Involuntary Intoxication as a Defence
• Protecting the Mentally Disordered Defendant against Herself
• Seances, and the Secrecy of the Jury-Room
• Civil Liability for Making False Accusations to the Police
• Bugging and Burglary by the Police
• Electronic Eavesdropping and Anomalies in the Law of Evidence
• Everybody Out
• Insanity and Mens Rea
• Procedural Anomalies
• Protecting the Mentally Disturbed Defendant against Himself
• Naming and Shaming Young Offenders
• Entrapment and the European Convention on Human Rights
• “Rape Shields” and the Right to a Fair Trial
• Did the Jury Misbehave? Don’t Ask, Because We do not Want to Know
• Acquitted: Presumed Innocent, or Deemed Lucky to Have Got Away with it?
• Spouses as Witnesses: Back to Brighton Rock?
• Civil Liability for Abuse of the Criminal Process: Downstream of Three Rivers
• Strict Liability and the European Convention
• Juries: The Freedom to Act Irresponsibly
• Is that a Gun in your Pocket, or Are you Purposively Constructive?
• Damages for Lost Chances: Lost for Good?
• Child Witnesses and The European Union
• Liability for Purely Economic Loss Again: “Small Earthquake in Chile. Not Many Dead”?
• Drunken Defence
• The Evidential Status of Previous Inconsistent Statements
• Acquitting the Innocent and Convicting the Guilty –Whatever will They Think of Next!
• Arrest for Questioning
• Three New Cases on Consent
• Curbing Speed and Limiting the Right of Silence
• Tort Law Bows to the Human Rights Act
• Suing the Police for Negligence: Orthodoxy Restored
• Criminal Liability for Accidental Death: Back to the Middle Ages?
• Assisted Suicide and the Discretion to Prosecute
• Legislate in Haste, Repent in Leisure
• Fair Trials and the European Arrest Warrant
• Policemen Behaving Badly – The Abuse of Misconduct in Office
• Strasbourg and Defendants’ Rights in Criminal Procedure
• Libel Tourist Ordered to Pay 8,000 Euros
• Arrest for Questioning
• Killa Walks Free
• Controlling the Discretion to Prosecute
• Police Officers on Juries
• Incest and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights
• Signature, Consent, and the Rule in L’Estrange v Graucob
• Annex: List of Selected Publications