The Blip Blop Blog (Team Entity)

In R v Hendy (2006) the accused a 16-year-old had without doubt some sort of mental impairment as a result of a head injury that he suffered from as a child. He was callous and reckless and gave little thought to his own safety and at times had endangered his own life. On the night of the incident the accused had been drinking heavily and had attempted to take his own life but he was stopped by friends. That night once he’d returned home, still drunk, he walked out into an alley with a knife and stabbed a man to death. The accused was arrested. At the trial it was held that the accused did not have to show that the mental impairment would have caused him to kill, under the circumstances, as per R v Egan and the court followed the decision in R v Dietschmann (2003). In addition to that if the accused satisfies the conditions of S. 2 of the Homicide Act 1957 the verdict that would be returned is that of manslaughter. When it comes to diminished responsibility the more bizarr

In R v Ahluwalia (1993), the accused was constantly abused by her husband. The type of abuse included beating her daily and taking her money. In addition to that he was also having an affair with another woman. On the night of the incident, after subjecting his wife to verbal abuse, the accused threatened to beat her up the following morning. Once the victim was asleep the accused doused her husband with petrol and set him alight. She was arrested and tried for murder. She raised the defense of provocation but the defense of provocation in line with the decision in R v Duffy (1949) was denied. The accused was convicted for murder and the accused appealed raising the defense of diminished responsibility. The appeal was allowed on the grounds of diminished responsibility however the judge did stress that under normal circumstances both defenses should be raised in the first instance otherwise the defense might exhaust one defense before attempting another. It was decided that the

Diminished responsibility and insanity are not the same thing see R v Rose (1961) (Privy Council). In R v Seers, the accused suffered from chronic depression and stabbed his wife. The accused was charged with murder and at the trial the judge directed the jury that they should only find the accused guilty of manslaughter if his depression bordered on insanity. The accused appealed on the grounds that the judge had erred in his direction and the court in line with R v Byrne (1960) held that in order for the defense of diminished responsibility to be raised the accused had to establish abnormality of mind as per S.2 of the Homicide Act (1957). The accused was found to be guilty of manslaughter. It is normally a good idea to produce medical evidence when raising the defense of diminished responsibility and while the jury may refuse to take into account or consider the medical evidence, they can do so if they find that the medical evidence has been tampered with see Walton v The Qu

Earlier on we had said that excessive drinking or consumption of alcohol alone while it may impair the accused’s ability to think and reason clearly will not fall under the category of diminished responsibility but what if the accused suffers from depression and commits murder while he or she was drunk or after he or she had been drinking excessively? In R v Fenton (1975), the accused after he’d been drinking heavily shot a policeman and drove off in his car to a club where he shot and killed more people, 3 more to be precise. The accused was charged with murder and raised the defense of diminished responsibility. Under S. 2 of the Homicide Act 1957 excessive drinking will only be a defense if “it either causes damage to the brain or produces an irresistible craving so that consumption is involuntary”. In situations where the consumption of alcohol will not give rise to a defense but the defendant suffers from some type of mental impairment the court will ignore or set

In R v Lloyd (1966) the accused strangled his wife. The accused was arrested and charged. At the trial, the defense brought to light the fact that the accused suffered from a mental abnormality but there was no evidence to indicate that the mental abnormality that he suffered from would impair his ability to reason. The trial judge directed the jury to the effect that they should decide based on the evidence that was presented to them if the mental abnormality constituted substantial impairment or otherwise. If the jury found that that the mental impairment was substantial then they should convict for manslaughter, otherwise they should convict for murder. The jury convicted for murder and the accused appealed on the grounds that “abnormality of mental functioning” as per S. 2 (1) of the Homicide Act (1957) meant that the mental impairment should be more than trivial and not substantial in the ordinary sense of the word. His appeal was based on the premise that the level of

The defense of diminished responsibility is raised when an accused is tried for murder and the defense puts forward the argument that at the time the accused committed the act he or she had lost, albeit temporarily, his or her ability to think and reason. It could either be due to a permanent illness see R v Smith (Morgan) (2000) or it could be due to an illness that makes itself obvious or apparent in temporary fits and seizures see R v Campbell (1997). In R v Dunbar (1958) the accused entered a room occupied by an 84-year-old lady while she was sleeping to steal some money. The lady woke up and the accused fearing that the lady would recognize him picked up a bottle of lemonade that was close by and hit her with it and the injuries that she sustained subsequently led to her death. The accused was tried and convicted for murder. At the trial, the accused raised the defense of diminished responsibility and he appealed on the grounds that the trial judge had misdirected the

R v James & Karimi (2006) concerns two separate appeals where the defense of provocation was raised. In the former the accused killed his wife after they’d been separated for four months, rather violently because she’d entered into a relationship with another man. The prosecution was willing to accept a verdict of manslaughter based on diminished responsibility supported by psychiatric reports but the accused refused and chose instead to rely on the defense of provocation which is more difficult to satisfy and is reliant on the reasonable man with the exception of the accused’s age as per DPP v Camplin (1978). In the latter, the accused was an immigrant who was allowed to stay in England with his wife and soon after his arrival his wife formed a new relationship with another man. His wife’s new partner armed with a knife confronted the accused, verbally insulting him as he did so, and the accused a trained former soldier, disarmed him and stabbed him with the knife. The acc

In R v Vinagre (1979) we have an opportunity to study firsthand how the Othello syndrome actually works or operates and it is something that plays on the mind of the offender. The accused suspected that his wife was having an affair with a plainclothes policeman though there was no evidence to suggest that they were having an affair and in a fit of jealousy the accused stabbed his wife 34 times thereby killing her. The accused was charged and the trial judge accepted the plea for diminished responsibility and hence his life imprisonment was reduced to 7 years. Overall however unfounded jealousy is not a defense and it only becomes a defense under diminished responsibility when it creates a clear mental imbalance. AG for Jersey v Holley (2005) reaffirms the fundamentals of criminal law in that the test that ought to be applied is the subjective test and the court ought to look at the accused’s state of mind at the time he or she committed the act as opposed to looking into th

The willingness of the courts to recognize mental illnesses was made clear in R v Smith (Morgan) (2000). Mental illnesses are a common facet of everyday life and one of the most common types of mental illness is depression. Just to give us an idea of how common it is, in the United States alone close to 17% of the population suffer from depression and almost 390 million people worldwide suffer from the illness. It is a subtle illness that sometimes has far reaching affects. In R v Smith (Morgan) (2000) we are given the opportunity to examine if an accused who is suffering from depression which in most instances is a long-term illness can have a conviction for murder reduced to that of manslaughter because he or she is suffering from depression. Both the accused and the victim were criminals and while they were drinking they got into an argument over some tools that they had stolen. The argument got heated and prompted the accused to pull out a knife and stab the victim as a

In order for the defense to raise the defense of provocation there must be clear insurmountable evidence that the accused was provoked. If it were otherwise the accused in most murder trials would resort to the defense of provocation. The words or actions must be clear, tangible and discernible and it must be sufficient to provoke a normal person of the accused’s age. In R v Acott (1997) the accused lived with his mother, despite being in his forties and he was financially dependent on her. His mother subsequently fell down a staircase and died while the ambulance was on its way. During the autopsy or postmortem, it was revealed that the mother did not die from the fall but rather died from an attack. The accused was arrested and accordingly charged with murder. The accused denied the allegations of murder but the jury nonetheless convicted the accused for murder. The accused appealed on the grounds that the judge had not advised the jury on provocation. The appeal was quash