Voluntary drunkenness No Diminished Responsibility
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.
Held: The correct approach was for the jury to ignore the effects of intoxication and to ask whether, leaving out the drink, the defendant’s other condition(s) of mental abnormality substantially impaired his responsibility for the killing. It was axiomatic that simple voluntary drunkenness was incapable of founding a plea of diminished responsibility.
Two questions arose. If the defendant had not taken drink, would he still have killed, and would he have been under diminished responsibility, and secondly, if not, what direction should be given when both are present. Gittens established that drink can further disinhibit a defendant already suffering abnormality of mind, the jury must decide whether the abnormality remained a nevertheless substantially impaired his responsibility, the defence of diminished responsibility does not necessarily fail if the jury decide that he would not have killed but for the drink, and Turnbull, Atkins and Egan should not be followed. A person who suffered diminished responsibility should not be convicted of murder but rather manslaughter, and whether or not he was at the time intoxicated. Guidance was then given on an appropriate jury direction.
Nichols of Birkenhead, Lloyd of Berwick, Hutton, Hobhouse of Woodborough LL
Times 28-Feb-2003, [2003] UKHL 10, Gazette 10-Apr-2003, [2003] 2 Cr App Rep 54, [2003] 1 All ER 897, [2003] 1 AC 1209, [2003] 2 WLR 613, [2003] All ER (D) 406
House of Lords, Bailii
Homicide Act 1957 2
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Gittens CACD 1984
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 Turnbull (Launcelot) CACD 1977
. .
Appeal from – Dietschmann v Regina CACD 5-Oct-2001
The defendant was convicted of murder. He claimed diminished responsibility arising from a disorder, being either according to one psychiatrist, arising from alcohol dependence syndrome, or according to another, a depressed grief reaction. The . .
Disapproved – Regina v Atkinson 1-Mar-1985
Jury Directions in diminished responsibility case. . .
Disapproved – Regina v Egan CACD 1992
The court considered the appropriate directions to a jury in diminished responsibility defence to murder charge.
Watkins LJ said: ‘In R v Lloyd . . directions as to the word ‘substantial’, to the effect that (1) the jury should approach the . .
Cited by:
Cited – Hendy, Regina v CACD 12-Apr-2006
The applicant was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1992 for a brutal murder. He had pleaded diminished responsibility. There were now no papers from the trial. Medical evidence now suggested that at the time of the trial he would have suffered a . .
Cited – Regina v Khan CACD 27-Jul-2009
On his trial for murder the defendant produced unchallenged expert evidence that at the time of the offence, his mental responsibility for the killing was substantially impaired by his mental illness. He said that in these circumstances the charge . .
Cited – Wood, Regina v (No 1) CACD 20-Jun-2008
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 – Stewart, Regina v CACD 26-Mar-2009
The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder, saying that the judge should have directed the jury as to the impact of alcohol dependency syndrome on his plea of diminished responsibility where there had been no discernible brain damage. . .
Cited – Dowds v Regina CACzD 22-Feb-2012
The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder, saying that he should have been allowed to rely on a plea of diminished responsibility given the changes to section 2 of the 1957 Act introduced in 2009. He said that his alcoholism should . .
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
Leading Case
Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.179612