Dowds v Regina: CACD 22 Feb 2012

References: [2012] EWCA Crim 281
Links: Bailii
Coram: Hughes LJ, Simon, Lang JJ
Ratio: The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder, saying that he should have been allowed to rely on a plea of dimished responsibillity given the changes to section 2 of the 1957 Act introduced in 2009. He said that his alcoholism should have been treated as explaining his loss of self control and amounting to an abnormality of mind.
Statutes: Homicide Act 1957 82, Coroners and Justice Act 2009 52
Jurisdiction: England and Wales
This case cites:

  • Cited – Fenton, Regina v ([1975] 61 Cr App R 261)
    The defendant had shot four people in two different locations. He suffered a number of conditions, including paranoid psychopathy, which raised the possibility of diminished responsibility, although the jury had rejected that defence. He now . .
  • Cited – Criminal proceedings against Lindqvist ECJ ([2004] All ER (EC) 561, Times 13-Nov-03, Bailii, [2003] EUECJ C-101/01, [2004] 2 WLR 1385, [2004] Info TLR 1, ECLI:EU:C:2003:596, [2004] QB 1014, [2003] ECR I-12971, [2004] CEC 117, [2004] 1 CMLR 20, C-101/01)
    Mrs Lindqvist had set up an internet site for her local parish containing information about some of her colleagues in the parish. She gave names, jobs, hobbies and in one case some of the person’s employment and medical details. The Court decided . .
  • Cited – Wood, Regina v (No 1) CACD (Bailii, [2008] EWCA Crim 1305, [2008] Crim LR 976, [2008] 2 Cr App R 34, [2008] 3 All ER 898, [2009] 1 WLR 496)
    The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder, saying that he suffered from alcohol dependency syndrome, and that this amounted to a diminished responsibility.
    Held: The appeal succeeded and and a conviction for manslaughter was . .
  • Cited – Regina v Gittens CACD ([1984] QB 698, [1984] Crim LR 554)
    Lord Lane set out the directions to be given to a jury on the defence of diminished responsibility: ‘Where a defendant suffers from an abnormality of mind arising from arrested or retarded development or inherent causes or induced by disease or . .
  • Cited – Regina v Dietschmann HL (House of Lords, Times 28-Feb-03, Bailii, [2003] UKHL 10, Gazette 10-Apr-03, [2003] 2 Cr App Rep 54, [2003] 1 All ER 897, [2003] 1 AC 1209, [2003] 2 WLR 613, [2003] All ER (D) 406)
    The defendant had been convicted of murder. At the time of the assault, he was both intoxicated to the point of losing his inhibitions and was also suffering an abnormality of mind sufficient substantially to reduce his mental responsibility.
  • Cited – Jaggard v Dickinson QBD ([1980] 3 All ER 716, [1981] QB 527)
    The defendant broke two windows and damaged a curtain in the house of a stranger. She was drunk. She was charged under the 1971 Act, but she raised her honest but drunken and mistaken belief that the house belonged to a friend who would have . .

(This list may be incomplete)
This case is cited by:

  • Cited – Bogdanic v The Secretary of State for The Home Department QBD (Bailii, [2014] EWHC 2872 (QB))
    The claimant challenged fines imposed on him after three illegal immigrants were found to have hidden in his lorry in the immigration control zone at Dunkirk. The 1999 At was to have been amended by the 2002 Act, and the implementation was by the . .

(This list may be incomplete)

Last Update: 26 September 2017
Ref: 451458