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43 J. Crim. L. 217 (1979)
House of Lords - Comments on Cases

handle is hein.journals/jcriml43 and id is 233 raw text is: .House of Lords Comments on Cases COMMITTAL FOR CRIMINAL LIBEL Gleaves v. Deakin The decision of the House of Lords in Gleaves v. Deakin (1979, 2 W.L.R. 665) was upon a purely technical point relating to the admiss- ibility of evidence in proceedings for committal for criminal libel in a case brought by a private prosecutor, but the case afforded the House of Lords an opportunity to remark on what Lord Diplock termed the present sorry state of the law of criminal libel in this country. The appellants were the authors and publishers of a book entitled Johnny Go Home. That book undoubtedly contained a large number of defamatory statements about the respondent, since it alleged that he was guilty of gross sexual offences against minors, fraud, dealing with stolen property, theft and other offences and generally concluding that he was a monster like the Krays or Richardson. He brought a private prosecution for libel and on the proceedings for committal, the defendants sought to adduce evidence of his general bad charac- ter. The magistrate admitted cross-examination which elicited evidence of the respondent's conviction of sexual crimes and crimes of violence and dishonesty, but refused leave to call evidence of his general bad reputation, on the ground that such evidence impinged on the merits of the case and was irrelevant at that stage of the proceedings. The magistrate's reason was that that evidence was not relevant to the only question which she had to decide, namely whether there was a prima facie case for trial. The defendants sought an order for certiorari to quash the committal proceedings or an order of mandamus to compel the magistrate to receive the proffered evidence. The Divisional Court refused the application on the ground that the evidence would not be relevant to the question whether what was complained of was a

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