1Rules as to indictments

The rules contained in the First Schedule to this Act with respect to indictments shall have effect as if enacted in this Act, but those rules may be added to, varied, or annulled by further rules made by the rule committee under this Act.

2Powers of rule committee

(1)There shall be established for the purposes of this Act a rule committee consisting of the Lord Chief Justice of England for the time being, and of a judge of the High Court, a chairman of quarter sessions, a recorder, a clerk of assize, a clerk of the peace, and another person having experience in criminal procedure, appointed in each case by the Lord Chief Justice.

(2)The rule committee shall have power from time to time, subject to the approval of the Lord Chancellor, to make rules varying or annulling the rules contained in the First Schedule to this Act and to make further rules with respect to the matters dealt with in those rules, and those rules shall have effect subject to any modifications or additions so made.

(3)Any rules made by the rule committee shall be laid, as soon as may be, before both Houses of Parliament, and, if within forty days on which either House has. sat since the rules were so laid before the House a petition is presented to His Majesty by that House praying that the rules or any part of them may be annulled, His Majesty may thereupon by Order in Council annul the same, and the same shall thenceforth be void, but without prejudice to the validity of anything done thereunder.

(4)The term of office of any person who is a member of the committee by virtue of appointment shall be such as may be specified in the appointment.

3General provisions as to indictments

(1)Every indictment shall contain, and shall be sufficient if it contains, a statement of the specific offence or offences with -which the accused person is charged, together with such particulars as may be necessary for giving reasonable information as to the nature of the charge.

(2)Notwithstanding any rule of law or practice, an indictment shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, not be open to objection in respect of its form or contents if it is framed in accordance with the rules under this Act.

4Joinder of charges in the same indictment

Subject to the provisions of the rules under this Act, charges for more than one felony or for more than one misdemeanour, and charges for both felonies and misdemeanours, may be joined in the same indictment, but where a felony is tried together with any misdemeanour, the jury shall be sworn and the person accused shall have the same right of challenging jurors as if all the offences charged in the indictment were felonies.

5Orders for amendment of indictment, separate trial, and postponement of trial

(1)Where, before trial, or at any stage of a trial, it appears to the court that the indictment is defective, the court shall make such order for the amendment of the indictment as the court thinks necessary to meet the circumstances of the case, unless, having regard to the merits of the case, the required amendments cannot be made without injustice, and may make such order as to the payment of any costs incurred owing to the necessity for amendment as the court thinks fit.

(2)Where an indictment is so amended, a note of the order for amendment shall be endorsed on the indictment, and the indictment shall be treated for the purposes of the trial and for the purposes of all proceedings in connection therewith as having been found by the grand jury in the amended form.

(3)Where, before trial, or at 'any stage of a trial, the court is of opinion that a person accused may be prejudiced or embarrassed in his defence by reason of being charged with more than one offence in the same indictment, or that for any other reason it is desirable to direct that the person should be tried separately for any one or more offences charged in an indictment, the court may order a separate trial of any count or counts of such indictment.

(4)Where, before trial, or at any stage of a trial, the court is of opinion that the postponement of the trial of a person accused is expedient as a consequence of the exercise of any power of the court under this Act to amend an indictment or to order a separate trial of a count, the court shall make such order as to the postponement of the trial as appears necessary.

(5)Where an order of the court is made under this section for a separate trial or for the postponement of a trial—

(a)if such an order is made during a trial the court may order that the jury are to be discharged from giving a verdict on the count or counts the trial of which is postponed or on the indictment, as the case may be; and

(b)the procedure on the separate trial of a count shall be the same in" all respects as if the count had been found in a separate indictment, and the procedure on the postponed trial shall be the same in all respects (if the jury has been discharged) as if the trial had not commenced; and

(c)the court may make such order as to costs and as to admitting the accused person to bail, and as to the enlargement of recognizances and otherwise as the court thinks fit.

(6)Any power of the court under this section shall be in addition to and not in derogation of any other power of the court for the same or similar purposes.

6Costs of defective or redundant indictments

Where it appears to the court that an indictment contains unnecessary matter, or is of unnecessary length, or is materially defective in any respect, the court may make such order as to the payment of that part of the costs of the prosecution which has been incurred by reason of the indictment so containing unnecessary matter, or being of unnecessary length, or being materially defective as the court thinks fit.

7Provision as to Vexatious Indictments Acts

Nothing in this Act shall prevent an indictment being open to objection if it contravenes or fails to comply with the [22 & 23 Vict. c. 17.] Vexatious Indictments Act, 1859, as amended by section one of the [30 & 31 Vict. c. 35.] Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1867, or any other enactment : Provided that an indictment shall not be open to objection under those Acts on the ground that a count is joined with the rest of the indictment which could not at the time of the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1867, be lawfully joined, if that count can be lawfully joined under the law for the time being in force.

8Savings and interpretation

(1)Nothing in this Act or the rules thereunder shall affect the law or practice relating to the jurisdiction of a court or the place where an accused person can be tried, nor prejudice or diminish in any respect the obligation to establish by evidence according to law any acts, omissions, or intentions which are legally necessary to constitute the offence with which the person accused is charged, nor otherwise affect the laws of evidence in criminal cases.

(2)In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, the expression "the court" means the court before which any indictable offence is tried or prosecuted.

(3)The provisions of this Act relating to indictments shall apply to criminal informations in the High Court and inquisitions, and also to any plea, replication, or other criminal pleading, with such modifications as may be made by rules under this Act.

9Repeal, extent, short title, and commencement

(1)The enactments specified in the Second Schedule to this Act are hereby repealed to the extent mentioned in the third column of that schedule.

(2)This Act shall not extend to Scotland or Ireland.

(3)This Act may be cited as the Indictments Act, 1915.

(4)This Act shall come into operation on the first day of April nineteen hundred and sixteen, but shall not apply to indictments in the case of persons committed for trial before that date, or to the trial of any such person.

SCHEDULES.

Sections 1, 2(2).

FIRST SCHEDULERules

Material, &c. for indictments.

1(1)An indictment may be on parchment or durable paper, and may be either written or printed, or partly written and partly printed.

(2)Each sheet on which an indictment is set out shall be not more than 12 aod not less than 6 inches in length, and not more that 14 and not less than 12 inches in width, and if more than one sheet is required, the sheets shall be fastened together in book form.

(3)A proper margin not less than 3 inches in width shall be kept on the left-hand side of each sheet.

(4)Figures and abbreviations may be used in an indictment for expressing anything which is commonly expressed thereby.

(5)There shall be endorsed on the back of an indictment the name of every witness examined or intended to be examined by the grand jury, and the foreman of the grand jury shall write his initials against the name of each witness so examined.

(6)An indictment shall not be open to objection by reason only of any failure to comply with this rule.

Commencement of the indictment.

2The commencement of the indictment shall be in the following form :—

Joining of charges in one indictment.

3Charges for any offences, whether felonies or misdemeanours, may be joined in the same indictment if those charges are founded on the same facts, or form or are a part of a series of offences of the same or a similar character.

Mode in which offences are to be charged.

4(1)A description of the offence charged in an indictment, or where more than one offence is charged in an indictment, of each offence so charged, shall be set out in the indictment in a separate paragraph called a count.

(2)A count of an indictment shall commence with a statement of the offence charged, called the statement of offence.

(3)The statement of offence shall describe the offence shortly in ordinary language, avoiding as far as possible the use of technical terms, and without necessarily stating all the essential elemeuts of the offence, and if the offence charged is one created by statute, shall contain a reference to the section of the statute creating the offence.

(4)After the statement of the offence, particulars of such offence shall be set out in ordinary language, in which the use of technical terms shall not be necessary :

Provided that where any rule of law or any statute limits the particulars of an offence which are required to be given in an indictment, nothing in this rule shall require any more particulars to he given than those so required.

(5)The forms set out in the appendix to these rules or forms conforming thereto as nearly as may be shall be used in cases to which they are applicable, and in other cases forms to the like effect or conforming thereto as nearly as may be shall be used, the statement of offence and the particulars of offence being varied according to the circumstances in each case.

(6)Where an indictment contains more than one count, the counts shall be numbered consecutively.

Provisions as to statutory offences.

5(1)Where an enactment constituting an offence states the offence to be the doing or the omission to do any one of any different acts in the alternative, or the doing or the omission to do any act in any one of any different capacities, or with any one of any different intentions, or states any part of the offence in the alternative, the acts, omissions, capacities, or intentions, or other matters stated in the alternative in the enactment, may be stated in the alternative in the count charging the offence.

(2)It shall not be necessary, in any count charging a statutory offence, to negative any exception or exemption from or qualification to the operation of the statute creating the offence.

Description of property.

6(1)The description of property in a count in an indictment shall be in ordinary language and such as to indicate with reasonable clearness the property referred to, and if the property is so described it shall not be necessary (except when required for the purpose of describing an offence depending on any special ownership of property or special value of property) to name the person to whom the property belongs or the value of the property.

(2)Where property is vested in more than one person, and the owners of the property are referred to in an indictment it shall be sufficient to describe the property as owned by one of those persons by name with others, and if the persons owning the property are a body of persons with a collective name, such as " Inhabitants," " 'trustees," " Commissioners," or " Club" or other such name, it shall be sufficient to use the collective name without naming any individual.

Description of persons.

7The description or designation in an indictment of the accused person, or of any other person to whom reference is made therein, shall be such as is, reasonably sufficient to identify him, without necessarily stating his correct name, or his abode, style, degree, or occupation ; and if, owing to the name of the person not being known, or for any other reason, it is impracticable to give such a description or designation, such description or designation shall be given as is reasonably practicable in the circumstances, or such person may be described as " a person unknown."

Description of document.

8Where it is necessary to refer to any document or instrument in an indictment, it shall be sufficient to describe it by any name or designation by which it is usually known, or by the purport thereof, without setting out any copy thereof.

General rule as to description.

9Subject to any other provisions of these rules, it shall be sufficient to describe any place, time, thing, matter, act, or omission whatsover to which it is necessary to refer in any indictment, in ordinary language in such a manner as to indicate with reasonable clearness the place, time, thing, matter, act or omission referred to.

Statement of intent.

10It shall not be necessary in stating any intent to defraud, deceive or injure to state an intent to defraud, deceive or injure any particular person where the statute creating the offence does not make an intent to defraud, deceive or injure a particular person an essential ingredient of the offence.

Charge of previous convictions, &c.

11Any charge of a previous conviction of an offence or of being a habitual criminal or a habitual drunkard shall be charged at the end of the indictment by means of a statement—in the case of a previous conviction that the person accused has been previously convicted of that offence at a certain time and place without stating the particulars of the offence, and in the case of a habitual criminal or habitual drunkard, that the offender is a habitual criminal or a habitual drunkard, as the case may be.

Saving of s. 32(4) of 8 Edw. 7. c.67.

12Nothing in these rules or in any rules made under section two of this Act shall affect the provisions of subsection (4) of section thirty-two of the Children Act, 1908.

Duty to furnish copy of indictment.

13(1)It shall be the duty of the clerk of assize, after a true bill has been found on any indictment, to supply to the accused person, on request, a copy of the indictment free of charge.

(2)The cost of any copy supplied to the accused person whether under this rule or otherwise shall be treated as part of the costs of the prosecution for the purpose of section one of the [8 Edw. 7. c. 15.] Costs in Criminal Cases Act, 1908.

(3)In the application of this rule to quarter sessions, the clerk of the peace shall be substituted for the clerk of assize.

Interpretation.

14The [52 & 53 Vict. c. 63.] Interpretation Act, 1889, applies for the interpretation of these rules, as it applies for the interpretation of an Act of Parliament.

Short title.

15These rules may be cited as the Indictment rules, 1915, and these rules, together with any rules made under section two of this Act, may be cited together by such collective title as may be prescribed by the last-mentioned rules.

APPENDIX TO RULESFORMS OF INDICTMENT

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Section 9.

SECOND SCHEDULEEnactments Repealed