The defendant had planned and executed the killing of his wife’s lover, a cousin, having given him a home. He threatened that he would kill him, and prepared to do so, trying to get keys to gain access to the victim’s home, and when that failed arranging a meeting to carry out his plan, equipping himself with a rope ligature for the purpose. He disposed of the body some distance away and set up a false alibi. The evidence was that he was depressed. One doctor described his state as ‘an emotional turmoil’ and a ‘tortured frame of mind’, and expressed the opinion that ‘in the tumultuous final moments which resulted in the death’ the impairment of mental responsibility would have been substantial. The other agreed that there was an element of depression, and accepted that it had played some part in the killing. Carefully cross-examined, he agreed that the impact of the depression on the defendant’s mental responsibility was more than trivial, but he disagreed that it was substantial. The jury convicted of murder. The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder, saying that the judge’s directions had not followed the Judicial Studies Board specimen directions.
Held: The appeal failed. Specimen Directions were invaluable guidance but there was no obligation to use them unless and until they had been formally approved and adopted by the Court of Appeal.
The defendant argued about the judge’s directions on the eaning of ‘substantially; in the context of his impairment, saying that there were two inconsistent meanings of ‘substantially’ to be derived from Lloyd, that the judge had in consequence failed to give the jury a clear direction and moreover that the law was in too uncertain a state to satisfy the requirements of article 7 of the ECHR. Accordingly, it was contended, the conviction for murder was unsafe. Lord Judge CJ rejected his ‘two meanings’ argument: ‘It is, however, clear on analysis that in Lloyd the court rejected the submission that there were two meanings for the word ‘substantially’. In the judgment in Lloyd the word ‘substantially’ carried ‘some’ meaning or ‘a’ meaning. It was accepted in Lloyd that there were different ways of illustrating the same concept and, if necessary, explaining its relevance to the jury. If the court in Egan had intended to convey that the words ‘substantially impaired’ embraced two different concepts or levels of impairment, it would have said so not by citing Lloyd as authority in support, but by distinguishing Lloyd. In the result, just as the court in Lloyd could see no effective difference between the directions in Simcox and Lloyd, the Court of Appeal in Egan could see no difficulty in the deployment of either of the two methods of explanation found in Lloyd.’
Judges:
Lord Judge, Lord Chief Justice, Mr Justice Penry-Davey and Mr Justice Irwin
Citations:
[2010] EWCA Crim 194, Times 22-Feb-2010, [2010] 2 Cr App R 3
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Golds, Regina v CACD 2-May-2014
The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder, sayng that the jury had been wrongly directed as to the meaning of ‘substantial impairent when considering the alternative of manslaughter . .
Cited – Golds, Regina v SC 30-Nov-2016
The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder, saying that he should have been only convicted of manslaughter, applying the new test for diminished responsibility as provided under the 1957 Act as amended, and particularly whether the . .
Cited – Brennan v Regina CACD 21-Nov-2014
The defendant, then 22 had a history of disturbed childhood, sexual abuse and outpatient mental health treatment together with one instance when he was sectioned following a suicide attempt. On the undisputed psychiatric evidence he suffered from a . .
Cited – Golds, Regina v SC 30-Nov-2016
The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder, saying that he should have been only convicted of manslaughter, applying the new test for diminished responsibility as provided under the 1957 Act as amended, and particularly whether the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 17 August 2022; Ref: scu.406839