Reeves v Gaskin

• Jurisdiction: Barbados
• Judge: Douglas, C.J.
• Judgment Date: 13 March 1970
• Neutral Citation: BB 1970 HC 2
• Court: High Court (Barbados)
• Date: 13 March 1970

Divisional Court

Douglas C.J.; Williams, J.

Reeves

and

Gaskin

Criminal Law - Appeal against conviction — Assault.

Facts: The respondent brought an action against the appellant for assault and was awarded damages against the appellant — Whether the appellant's conviction should be quashed since in respect of the same incident for an assault occasioning actual bodily harm on the respondent, the appellant had appealed against his conviction — There was no law which would have precluded the magistrate from proceeding with the trial of the claim in damages — Whether s. 38 of the Offences Against the Person Act, 1868 formed the proper basis for a bar to a conviction

The proper time to raise the bars created by s. 38 is at the trial of the action and in this case the appellant being unable to lead evidence in support of the bars when the action was tried could not avail himself of the benefit of section. 38.

Douglas, C.J.

1 The respondent to this appeal Manoah Gaskin brought an action in damages against the appellant Goulbourne Reeves before the magistrate at Holetown. His claim was that Reeves assaulted and beat him on January 18, 1968, at Paynes Bay, St. James. The magistrate awarded him $86 damages.

2 In this appeal against the award, the substantive point taken by counsel for the appellant was that, previous to the respondent's claim in damages being heard, the appellant had been convicted, in respect of the same incident, for an assault occasioning actual bodily harm on the respondent and had appealed against his conviction. Counsel for the appellant submitted that the magistrate erred in law in dealing with the claim in damages at a time when the appeal was pending. According to this submission, the magistrate should have foreseen the possibility of a conviction for a common assault being substituted by the Divisional Court for a conviction for an assault occasioning actual bodily harm. A situation had now arisen, counsel continued, in which the Divisional Court had substituted a conviction for a common assault and the appellant now seeks to have the benefit of section 38 of the Offences against the Person Act, 1868, No. 5. That section provides as follows:

“38. If any person against whom any such complaint as in either of the last three preceding sections mentioned shall have been preferred by or on behalf of the party aggrieved shall have obtained such certificate, or having been convicted shall have paid the whole amount adjudged to be paid, or shall have suffered the imprisonment or imprisonment with hard labour awarded, in every such case he shall be released from all further or other proceedings, civil or criminal, for the same cause.”

3 Counsel submits that the magistrate acted in breach of the spirit of the provisions of the statute when he failed to adjourn the claim pending the determination...