Insanity

• Insanity is available for all offences.
• The defence of insanity may be relevant here.The rules for this defence were laid down in M'Naghten rules 1843.
• Firstly the D must be suffering from a defect of reason. This means an inability by the D to use powers of reason but this must be more than absent mindfulness as said in Clarke. It can be a temporary deprivation of a power to reason as outlined in Sullivan
• Secondly, the defect of reason must arise from a disease of the mind.This must be caused by something internal rather than external. This can be physical internal factor and not just mental factors (Kemp).It includes internal factors such as: diabetes(Hennessey), epilepsy(Bratty), sleepwalking(burgess).
• the internal disease must affect ordinary mental faculties e.g. imagination, memory, reason, perception, will and institution.
• Thirdly, as a result of the disease of the mind, the D must not either know the nature and quality of his/her act or not know what they were doing was wrong in law(windle)
• conclude - can X use the defence or not?

  If X can use the defence - say X will be found guilty by reason of insanity and is likely to have a hospital order under the Criminal Procedure Act 1991