The Perjury Act 1911, (common to Ireland and the UK) defines perjury as follows:
If any person lawfully sworn as a witness or as an interpreter in a Judicial Proceeding wilfully makes a statement material in that proceeding, which he knows to be false or does not believe to be true, he shall be guilty of perjury.
The maximum sentence is seven years. I cannot find figures for perjury prosecutions in Ireland but the situation in the UK is described in the following academic article (Warning - heavy reading)
http://www.buckingham.ac.uk/publicit...s-paptcojc.pdf It contains the interesting statistic that over 100 prosecutions are brought per year (1991-2000) Over 80% of defendants are convicted and 53% of those go to prison. In the
Hall case (1982), Judge Talbot remarked
it is almost inconceivable that a sentence of less than three months would be given for a deliberate perjury in the face of the court, since such false evidence strikes at the whole basis of the administration of the law
and from the Crown Prosecution Service:
Perjury is regarded as "one of the most serious offences on the criminal calendar because it wholly undermines the whole basis of the administration of justice":- Chapman J in (R v Warne(1980) 2 Cr. App.R. (S) 42). It is regarded as serious whether it is committed in the context of a minor case, for example a car passenger who falsely states that the driver did not jump a red light as alleged, or a serious case, for example a false alibi witness in a bank robbery case.
The offence of Perverting the Course of Justice is a wide one and includes the fabrication of evidence or
inducing an other person to do so This would widen the net and could put others apart from Wilson and Brady into the frame. And into Mountjoy
