Odger's English Common Law

308 ACTS ENDANGERING HUMAN LIFE.
disposed of ; otherwise no offence under this section will be
committed.
(ii.) " What is a secret disposition must depend upon the
circumstances of each particular case. The most complete
exposure of the body might be a concealment; as, for
instanoe, if the body were placed in the middle of a moor in
the winter, or on the top of a mountain, or in any other
secluded place, where the body would not be likely to be
found. There would, in such a case, be a secret disposition
of the body. The jury must say, in each case, whether
or not the facts show that there has been such a disposition.
... It is easy to suggest cases where placing a body in a
particular situation would undoubtedly be evidence of a
secret disposition, as if a body were thrown down from a
cliff to the sea shore in a secluded place. If, however, the
place were very much frequented, there might be no evidence
of a secret disposition from such an act." 1
A mere denial of the birth will not be sufficient; 2 nor will
the fact that the woman, when about to be delivered, made
no preparation or purposely arranged to be unattended in her
confinement. 8
body after the child is dead.
There must be some act of disposal of the
Thus, flinging it over a wall four and a half feet high into a grazing-field
4
or shutting it up in a box or a drawer is a secret disposition but in one
;
case, -putting it in a box, closed but unfastened, in a room much resorted
to by persons in the house, 5 and in another case leaving it on the
bed covered over with a petticoat, was held not to amount to a secret
disposition of the dead body.
Some evidence of identity is required, though in practice
very little. It is enough if the prosecution can prove in
evidence that from her appearance the woman had been with
child, that from her altered appearance or the state of her
room she had been delivered, and that the dead body of a
i Per Bovill, C. J., in B. v. Brown (1870), L. R. 1 0. C. R. at pp. 246, 247.
2 R. v. Turner (1839), 8 C. & P. 756.
s B. v. Ixod (1904), 20 Cox, 690.
* B. v. Brown, suprd; and see B. v. Cook (1870), 11 Cox, 642.
» B. v. George (1868), 11 Cox, 41 ; and see B. v. Sleep, (1864), 9 Cox, 659.
« B. v. Bosenberg (1906), 70 J. P. 264.