A man who had previously murdered his second wife and had now sought out his third wife, with whom he was in dispute, taking with him a rifle with which he shot her sister when it was her whom he encountered. Some four psychiatrists agreed that he had an abnormality of mind, namely a paranoid personality. Each said that it impaired his self-control, but none was prepared to say that the impairment was substantial; they spoke of ‘moderate’ impairment, or of his finding it ‘harder’ than others to control himself. The judge left the question to the jury in the terms of the section, adding only that they should ask: ‘do we think, looking at it broadly as commonsense people, there was a substantial impairment of his mental responsibility in what he did? If the answer to that is ‘yes’ then you find him not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. If the answer to that is ‘no, there may be some impairment but we do not think it was substantial. We do not think it was something which really made any great difference although it may have made it harder to control himself to refrain from crime’, then you would find him guilty as charged.’
Held: Whilst observing that the final sentence needed the previous focus on the word ‘substantial’ in order that it should not be thought that the absence of self-control had to be total, approved this direction.
Citations:
The Times 25 February 1964, [1964] Crim LR 402
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
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
Updated: 31 August 2022; Ref: scu.631426