OCCUPIER OF LAND NEED NOT PROVE A NEGATIVE. 371 



It was held by the Court of Criminal Appeal that it is not necessary 

 OH the part of the prosecution to call the occupier or the oivner of the land to 

 p>rove that the persons charged ivere not vpon the land hy their permission 

 {Reg. V. Wood). This case was reserved by Bramivell B., in conse- 

 quence of a decision of Martin B., in Reg. v. Edge, to the effect that in 

 a case of night poaching, the landlord or occupier of the land, whichever 

 was entitled to the game, ought to be called to show that the prisoner 

 was not on the land by their permission. Jervis C.J. said : " There 

 must have been something more in that case. If men are on land at 

 night armed and doing violence, is the occupier to be called to deny that 

 he had allowed them a day's shooting ? " And it is sufficient to allege 

 in the indictment, that the land is land "of and belonging to J." without 

 stating it to be in the occupation of J. {Reg. v. Riley). 



In Cox V. Reid & Another, the defendant, Eeid, who rented some land 

 in Surrey, discovered the plaintiff shooting on the land, and warned him 

 off. The latter handed his game-certificate (which the defendant desig- 

 nated as " all humbug," on account of some seeming insufficiency in the 

 plaintiff's description), when asked for his address, but refused to give 

 up his gun or quit the premises, and the defendant with the assistance 

 of his gamekeeper, the other defendant, took away his gun, removed him 

 hy force into a lane, and detained him there (after a scuffle, in which he 

 was thrown down and injured) till a policeman came. Ultimately he 

 was not given into charge, but summoned for trespass, and convicted. 

 He then brought an action of trespass for assaulting and wounding, 

 &c., to which the defendants pleaded Not guilty by statute, relying on 

 1 & 2 Will. IV. c. 32, s. 31, and Parke B. left it to the jury to say, 

 whether or not the defendants at the time of the alleged assault and 

 imprisonment acted under the belief that they had authority under the 

 provisions of that section, and if so, whether they had reasonable 

 grounds for so believing. The jury found that the defendants had no 

 right to take away the gun, but the defendants thought they were act- 

 ing in pursuance of the statute ; and his lordship then directed a non- 

 suit, on the ground that the plaintiff had not given a month's notice of 

 trial in compliance with sec. 47. It was held that the question of rea- 

 sonable or not reasonable belief in this case was a question simply whe- 

 ther there was such bona fides as entitled the defendants to notice of 

 action, and that the case was properly left to the juiy, and that the 

 defendants were entitled to notice whether the trespass was justifiable 

 under the statute or not. 



Reg. V. George Prestneg, which was an indictment for felonious cutting 

 and 'Wounding, turned upon the construction of the same section. The 

 prosecutor found the prisoner in a field of his, with another man, 



B B 2 



