Medical evidence available at the time of the trial of the defendant for murder had been against diminished responsibility but there was said to be fresh evidence in favour of it now available for the appeal.
Held: ‘In the view of this Court, cases must be rare indeed when the defence have chosen to run at the trial as their only defence the defence of accident or provocation, or a combination of the two, and when that defence has failed can consult and call a psychiatrist, or a psychiatrist seeing the appellant for the first time many months after the event, with a view to getting a retrial to run a defence of diminished responsibility. It may well be that if subsequent evidence of diminished responsibility was really overwhelming, the Court might well fell moved to substitute a verdict of manslaughter, or to order a new trial.’
Judges:
Fenton Atkinson LJ, Stephenson LJ and Lawton J
Citations:
Unreported, 10 June 1971
Statutes:
Criminal Appeal Act 1968 23, Homicide Act 1957 2
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Weekes CACD 18-Feb-1999
The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder saying that at the time of the offence he suffered a paranoid psychotic illness which would have substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts. He was not regarded as insane as . .
Approved – Regina v Melville CACD 1976
The defendant appealed his conviction for murder saying that evidence later obtained suggested that he was suffering diminished responsibility at the time of the offence.
Held: The evidence was not admitted. It was not sufficiently strong to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 01 May 2022; Ref: scu.241717
