Diminished Responsibility

• S2 Homicide Act 1957 and amended by S52 Coroners and Justice Act 2009. 
• def must be suffering from an abnormality of mental functioning (Byrne)
• “a state of mind so different from that of an ordinary human being that the reasonable man would term it as abnormal”
• abnormality must arise from a recognised medical condition
• Battered spouse syndrome (Aluwahlia) 
• Psychotic disorders (Byrne) 
• Premenstrual tension (English) 
• Postnatal depression (Reynolds) 
• Alcohol dependency syndrome (Wood) 
• The abnormality must substantially impair the defendants responsibility to do one of the three things in S1(a): 

  1. Understand the nature of their conduct 
  2. To form rational judgement 
  3. Exercise self-control 
• substantial has been confirmed by (Golds) 
• If relevant: 

  The jury must ignore the intoxication and make the decision only on the abnormality of the mind, would the defendant still have carried out their actions based only on the abnormality (Gittens) (Dietschmann)