Diminished Responsibility

• Act of diminished responsibility?

  S.2 Homicide Act 1957 (as amended by s.52 Coroners and Justice Act 2009).
• 1. Suffering an abnormality of mental functioning…


  Byrne - a state of mind so different from that of an ordinary person that a reasonable person would term it abnormal.
• 2. Arising from a recognised medical condition…

  e.g depression (Gittens), epilepsy (Price), paranoia (Martin), psychopathy (Byrne)

  Alcohol dependency can be abnormality if unable to control drinking - Tandy.
• 3. Which substantially impaired the defendants ability to…

  • understand the nature of his conduct - e.g. delusional
  • form a rational judgement - e.g. schizophrenia/BWS
  • Exercise self-control - e.g. uncontrollable impulses
  • Golds - jury decide whether D ‘substantially’ impaired using obvious meaning.
• 4. The abnormality provides an explanation for D’s actions in killing (casual link between abnormality and killing - Brown)


  Does not need to be only cause, but must be a significant factor.