fatal offences

• Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being under the King's peace, in any country of the realm, with malice aforethought, express or implied
• Voluntary Manslaughter occurs when murder is reduced to manslaughter due to loss of control (LOC) or diminished responsibility (DR), reflecting that the defendant is less blameworthy and avoids a mandatory life sentence for murder
• Loss of Control (LOC) is a partial defence where the defendant causes the death but at the time lost self-control and reacted as a "normal person" might have done in the defendant's situation
• LOC requires a "loss of self-control" with a "qualifying trigger" where a person of the defendant's sex and age with a normal degree of tolerance and self-restraint may have reacted in a similar way (normal person test)
• Qualifying triggers for LOC can be fear of serious violence (fear trigger) or things said or done causing a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged (anger trigger)
• Limitations on qualifying triggers for LOC include sexual infidelity/affair and revenge, where revenge excludes situations where the defendant acted in a considered desire for revenge
• Diminished Responsibility (DR) under s.2 Homicide Act 1957 amended by s.52 CJA 2009 reduces murder to manslaughter if an abnormality of mental functioning (AMF) arose