CASE SUMMARIES : 8 January 1996

The following notes of judgments were prepared by the reporters of the All England Law Reports.

Children

Re B (a minor); CA (Neill LJ, Bennett J) 21 Dec 1995.

The County Court had no power either to require or to accept an undertaking from a mother when making a supervision order, under s 31 of the Children Act 1989, in respect of her child.

Elizabeth Gumbel (Matthew Arnold & Baldwin, Watford) for the guardian ad litem and the local authority; William Holland (Pollards, Boreham Wood) for the mother.

Road traffic

DPP v Neville; QB Div Ct (Schiemann LJ, Holland J) 4 Dec 1995.

The "airside" part of Heathrow airport was a public place for the purposes of the Road Traffic Act 1988 and the respondent, who knocked down a child on Pier 7 in Terminal 3 whilst driving an electric buggy, could be convicted of driving in a public place without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road, contrary to s 3 of the Act.

John McGuinness (CPS) for the appellant; the respondent did not appear.

Social security

Steane v Chief Adjudication Officer & anr; CA (Hirst, Aldous LJJ, Forbes J) 7 Dec 1995.

An elderly person who elected to continue living in and paying the full cost of her accommodation at a residential home, following the transfer of its ownership and management from the local authority to a voluntary association, thereafter was not a person for whom accommodation was provided by the local authority under ss 21 or 26 of the National Assistance Act 1948 or para 2 of Sched 8 to the National Health Service Act 1977 or in circumstances where the cost was borne wholly or partly out of public or local funds, so as to be precluded, by virtue of s 35(6) of the Social Security Act 1975 and reg 4 of the Social Security Attendance Allowance No 3 Regulations 1983 (SI 1741), from claiming attendance allowance under s 35(1) of the 1975 Act and, subject to her fulfilling other benefit criteria, she was entitled so to claim. (Leave to appeal to the House of Lords granted.)

John Howell QC (Dept of Social Security) for the appellants; Roger McCarthy (Isle of Wight CC) for the respondent.

Tax

Glaxo Group Ltd v Inland Revenue Commrs; CA (Leggatt, Millett LJJ, Sir Ralph Gibson) 14 Dec 1995.

It was not necessary for the Revenue to make a fresh assessment which would have to be within the six-year limit to give effect to a transfer pricing direction by the Board under the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1970, s 485 (s 770 of the 1988 Taxes Act). Adjustments could be made to corporation tax. The result was that assessments going back many years could be increased in accordance with a transfer pricing direction.

John Gardiner QC, Jonathan Peacock (Slaughter & May) for Glaxo; Ian Glick QC, Michael Furness (Inland Revenue).

Wase (Insp of Taxes) v Bourke; ChD (Anthony Grabiner QC, deputy judge) 22 Nov 1995.

A dairy farmer who sold his milk quota nearly a year after the sale of his dairy herd and the cessation of the farming business was not entitled to retirement relief in respect of the disposal. The milk quota was not part of the dairy farming business within the Finance Act 1985, s 69(2)(a) (now Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, s 163) but merely an asset which did not qualify for relief immediately before its disposal.

Timothy Brennan (Inland Revenue); John Walters (Cross Ram & Co, Halesworth) for the taxpayer.

Wills

Re Goodchild (decd); ChD (Carnwath J) 13 Dec 1995.

If a clear agreement could be found, in the two testators' wills or elsewhere, that they were to be mutually binding (whether or not that was expressed in language of recovation), the law would give effect to that intention by way of a "floating trust", which became irrevocable following the death of the first testator and crystallised on the death of the second. The floating trust so created was not destroyed by remarriage of the second testator after the first's death.

Jeremy Gordon (Poole & Co, Yeovil) for the plaintiffs; J.H.G. Sunnucks (Porter Bartlett & Mayo, Yeovil) for the defendant.