The Blip Blop Blog (Team Entity)

A physical disease of the mind or damage to the brain will, if the circumstances permit, allow the defendant to raise the defense of insanity, and the M’Naghten rule can be extended to cover these types of situations. In R v Kemp (1957) the defendant who was suffering from arteriosclerosis (a thickening or hardening of the arteries normally caused by old age) assaulted his wife with a hammer and the defendant was charged under section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 for causing grievous bodily harm (GBH) to his wife. At the trial the defendant raised the defense of automatism but the trial judge directed the jury on insanity. It was held that in order to determine if the defense (insanity) would avail itself to the defendant the court had to look into whether the mental faculties of reason, memory and understanding are impaired or absent and the physical state or condition of the mind is irrelevant. If the defendant was not able to comprehend or understand th

With regards to the defense of insanity, a wrongful act is an act that is defined as an act that is legally wrong and not morally wrong i.e. it must be an act that is in breach of either common law or statutory law and as long as the defendant can appreciate or understand that his actions are legally wrong than the defense of insanity would not be  made available to him. The defense of insanity only comes into play when the defendant is not capable of understanding the nature of his or her act or is not able to comprehend the seriousness of the offence. In R v Windle (1952) the defendant administered an aspirin overdose to his suicidal wife, who was terminally ill. He was without doubt suffering from a mental condition but during his arrest, he said to the arresting officers “I suppose that they will hang me for this” which implied that the defendant knew that his act was legally wrong, and he was able to understand the seriousness of his act. He was tried and convicted, an

At the start of the trial, when the defendant is charged, he is charged on the presumption that he is sane and it is up to the defense to rebut the presumption of sanity i.e. to prove that the defendant is not sane. In M'Naghten (1843) the defendant attempted to kill the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, and instead shot and killed his secretary Edward Drummond. At the time of the killing the defendant was suffering from insane delusions i.e. a false conception of reality. It was held that in all instances the jury is to be told that the defendant is presumed to be sane at the time of the crime and this presumption is valid until the defense can prove otherwise and in order for the defense of insanity to be successful it must be clearly proved by way of evidence that the defendant was laboring under such defect of reason due to a disease of the mind that he or she was unable to know the nature and quality of the act. In 1883 the Trial of Lunatics Act was passed and as