The court considered the different standards of proof required for civil and criminal accusations of assault.
Held: Appeal allowed. The onus of proving self-defence as a defence to murder, or a defence of ‘killing se defendendo’, was on the accused.
Lord Goddard CJ added: ‘It is a defence of justification, or, to put it in terms of pleading, a confession and avoidance. In civil cases this plea is always to be proved by the party setting it up; and it is perhaps not altogether easy to see why it should not be so in a criminal case, more especially as when self-defence is set up the facts must often be known only to the defendant who relies upon it.’
Judges:
Lord Goddard CJ
Citations:
[1957] 1 QB 547, [1957] NZPoliceLawRp 5, (1957) 8 New Zealand Police Law Reports 469, [1957] 2 WLR 524, [1957] 1 All ER 734, (1957) 41 Cr App Rep 100
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – George Worme Grenada Today Limited v The Commissioner of Police PC 29-Jan-2004
PC (Grenada) The defendant was editor of a newspaper which carried a story severely defamatory of the prime minister. He was convicted of criminal libel, and appealed.
Held: The appeal was dismissed. The . .
Cited – Ashley and Another v Sussex Police CA 27-Jul-2006
The deceased was shot by police officers raiding his flat in 1998. The claimants sought damages for his estate. They had succeeded in claiming damages for false imprisonment, but now appealed dismissal of their claim for damages for assault and . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 28 January 2022; Ref: scu.192653