Director of Public Prosecutions v Nelson: PC 16 Feb 2015

Court of Appeal of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (Antigua and Barbuda) Both prosecutor and dfeendant appealed against a decision of the remitting court to substitute a conviction for manslaughter for an original conviction for murer. The defendant had argued self defence, inconsistent with provocation, but the appellate court had made its decision on the basis of evidence of provocation.
Held: Murderous intent (of either kind) is in no sense inconsistent with the partial defence of provocation. Indeed, provocation assumes murderous intent. It only arises when the essential elements of murder are all proved, including murderous intent, and: ‘The Board is satisfied that when the whole of the summing up is examined and the passage cited by the Court of Appeal is taken in context, the judge plainly did not fall into the error supposed by that court. There was no danger that the jury might think that murderous intent negated provocation.’
The defendant argued that the judge’s direction as to provocation did not sufficiently explain to the jury that provocation means, in law, things said or done which cause the defendant to have murderous intent. As to this, the Board answered that: ‘It is certainly true that the legal concept of provocation is of provocative behaviour which leads the defendant to do as he did, that is to say to kill the deceased. In the present case, the judge’s repeated directions that the question for the jury was whether provocative behaviour led the defendant ‘to do as he did’ amply made this clear.’

Lady Hale, Lord Hughes, Lord Toulson
[2015] UKPC 7
Bailii
Citing:
CitedRegina (Director of Public Prosecutions) v Camplin HL 1978
The court considered the direction to be given as to the existence of provocation so as to reduce a charge of murder to one of manslaughter. The reasonable man in the definition should be one with the defendant’s mental condition. ‘The judge should . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Commonwealth

Updated: 27 December 2021; Ref: scu.542756