Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

"No husband shall be compellable to disclose any communication made to him by his wife during the marriage, and no wife shall be compellable to disclose any communication made to her by her husband during the marriage."

To the same effect is Section 1(d) of the Criminal Evidence Act, 1898

6. The question in 1989 Ch 680, was whether a widow could be compelled to answer interrogatories designed to obtain from her admissions as to a secret trust imposed on her by her late husband Simonds J. disallowed it; but the Court of Appeal reversed him. Sir Wilfrid Greene. M.R., observed:

It is for these reasons, the majority of which were not put before the learned Judge, that I have arrived at a different conclusion to that reached by him; I hold that there is no ground on which the defendant, who is a widow, is entitled to refuse to answer all or any of the interrogatories propounded on behalf of the plaintiff "

Finlay J agreed with both. Accordingly the widow was compelled to answer the interrogatories to disclose her late husband's communication

7. In 1964 AC. 814, the appellant, who was the mate of a Dutch ship, broke open into a house at a port in the Irish sea and, after committing rape on a young woman there, murdered her and escaped to the ship which sailed off to Liverpool After the ship had sailed he entrusted a closed envelope, addressed to his wife in Holland, to another member of the crew requesting him to post it at some place outside the United Kingdom.