DECISION AGAINST THE "UNWRITTEN LAW"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 224, 16 June 1919, Page 5

DECISION AGAINST THE "UNWRITTEN LAW"

The British Court of Criminal Appeal recently decided. against the , "unwritten law." Vivian Coryton, a soldier, appealed against a sentence of seven years' penal servitndo passed at Manchester Assizes for shooting with intent to murder a man having guilty relations with his wife.

t Ah-. li'ulton, for tho appellant, said that Goryton found a man named Davies in a room with his wife in April, 1917, and shot at and missed him. He was tried and acquitted. He then went to France, and returning in January, 1919, came to tho conclusion that Davies had not july been living with but was sponging on his wife, as an examination of her bankbook showed, and he pursued Davies in the street, shot at him and missed, followed'him into a house, ami* then shut him. The wound was a slight one, and only necessitated the man remaining in hospital for a week.

Mr. Justice Bray pointed out that the accused had said, "I made up lny mind to finish him, I have done nothing I am ashamed of. I took matters into my own hands whatever may bo the consequences." In iriving judgment refusing tho appeal Mr. Justice Bray said it was necessary for the Court to lay it down quite clearly that under no circumstances wasaeoldier in such a case entitled to take the lf\w into his own hands.