The defendant was convicted of manslaughter with diminished responsibility. The court was now asked whether it was correct to order a discretionary life sentence or to impose a hospital order pursuant to section 37 of the 1983 Act, with a restriction requirement pursuant to section 41. It was accepted that if a hospital order coupled with a restriction was not appropriate then the discretionary sentence was the correct sentence.
Held: The ‘acute difficulty’ in offences of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility where the mental illness is one such as schizophrenia is in assessing the degree of the offender’s responsibility. In this case, the appellant retained a substantial degree of mental responsibility for the killing of the victim.
Judges:
Moses LJ, Maddison J, Scott-Gall J
Citations:
[2011] EWCA Crim 73, (2011) 119 BMLR 21, [2011] MHLR 71, [2011] Crim LR 421
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Fort, Regina v CACD 13-Dec-2013
The defendant had been found guilty of manslaughter by virtue of diminished responsibility. He had been 17, and a technically incorrect sentence of life imprisonment had been passed. There had been conflicting diagnoses of his condition between . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Sentencing
Updated: 01 September 2022; Ref: scu.428370