Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1997 > Select Committtee on Social Affairs > Report - Report of the Select Committee on Social Affairs on Non-Fatal Offences against the Person in respect of Children

Appendix 4: Section 12 of the Children Act, 1908

12.-(1) If any person over the age of sixteen* years, who has the custody, charge, or care of any child or young person, wilfully assaults, ill-treats, neglects, abandons, or exposes such child or young person or causes or procures such child or young person to be assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, abandoned, or exposed, in a manner likely to cause such child or young person unnecessary suffering or injury to his health (including injury to or loss of sight, or hearing, or limb, or organ of the body, arid any mental derangement), that person shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and shall be liable-

(a)on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or alternatively, or in default of payment of such fine, or in addition thereto, to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding two years; and

(b)on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding twenty-five pounds, or alternatively, or in default of payment of such fine, or in addition thereto, to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding six months;

and for the purposes of this section a parent or other person legally liable to maintain a child or young person shall be deemed to have neglected him in a manner likely to cause injury to his health if he fails to provide adequate food, clothing, medical aid, or lodging for the child or young person, or if, being unable otherwise to provide such food, clothing, medical aid, or lodging, he fails to take steps to procure the same to be provided under the Acts relating to the relief of the poor.

(2) A person may be convicted of an offence under this section, either on indictment or by a court of summary jurisdiction, notwithstanding that actual suffering or injury to health, or the likelihood of such suffering or injury to health, was obviated by the action of another person.

(3) A person may be convicted of an offence under this section, either on indictment or by a court of summary jurisdiction, notwithstanding the death of the child or young person in respect of whom the offence is committed.

(4) Upon the trial of any person over the age of sixteen indicted for the manslaughter of a child or young person of whom he had the custody charge or care, it shall be lawful for the jury, if they are satisfied that the accused is guilty of an offence under this section in respect of such child or young person, to find the accused guilty of such offence.

(5) If it is proved that a person convicted under this section was directly or indirectly interested in any sum of money accruable or payable in the event of the death of the child or young person, and had knowledge that such sum of money was accruing or becoming payable, then-

(a)in the case of a conviction on indictment, the court may in its discretion either increase the amount of the fine under this section so that the fine does not exceed two hundred pounds; or, in lieu of awarding any other penalty under this section, sentence the person to penal servitude for any term not exceeding five years; and

(b)in the case of a summary conviction, the court in determining the sentence to be awarded shall take into consideration the fact that the person was so interested and had such knowledge.

(6) A person shall be deemed to be directly or indirectly interested in a sum of money under this section, if he has any share in or any benefit from the payment of that money, though he is not a person to whom it is legally payable.

(7) A copy of a policy of insurance, certified by an officer or agent of the insurance company granting the policy, to be a true copy, shall in any proceedings under this section be prima facie evidence that the child or young person therein stated to be insured has been in fact so insured, and that the person in whose favour the policy has been granted is the person to whom the money thereby insured is legally payable.

(8) An offence under this section is in this Part of this Act referred to as an offence of cruelty.

* Changed to 17 years by section 4 of the Children Act, 1957.