Duress

• Duress - 2 stage test, Graham


  Subjective test - D acted because he reasonably believed he would face death or serious personal injury.

  Objective test - it is asked whether a sober person of reasonable firmness with the same characteristics of the D would have responded in the same way as D
• Duress - Valderrama-Vega


  Confirms that there must a threat of serious violence or death, but cumulative threats can be taken into account alongside this.
• Duress - Cole


  There must also be nexus (a sufficient connection) between the threat and the crime
• Duress - the threat must be unavoidable


  Gill - a strict approach to this rule was taken, if D has any opportunity to inform the police, the defence will fail.

  Hudson and Taylor; Abdul-Hussain - more lenient approach was taken by the COA so that the threat was only needed to be ‘imminent’ or ‘hanging over’ the D
• Duress - Hasan


  leading HOL decision has returned the law to the strict interpretation in Gill, that the threat must be immediate. Also affirmed the rule thaT self-induced duress will defeat the defence. This means that is D joins a violent criminal gang voluntarily they cannot rely on the defence if that gang threatens them to commit a crime
• Duress - is not available for…

  The defence of murder (Howe)

  Or attempted murder (Gotts)

  Regardless of the age of the D (Wilson)

  and low IQ is irrelevant (Bowen)
• Duress of circumstances


  Differs from duress by threats in that of circumstances dictate the crime rather than a person.

  It may well be a person that creates the circumstances, but there is no requirement that a person specifies that a crime must be committed
• Duress of circumstances is mainly used as a defence to…

  driving offences where D felt compelled to commit a driving offence, because of the circumstances they found themselves in, rather than having been threatened to do so.

  (Willer; Conway; Martin)