Diminished Responsibility

• The defence of Diminished responsibility can be raised to a charge of murder.
• If successful the defence will reduce the charge to voluntary manslaughter.
• The defence is set out in s2 Homicide Act of 1957 as amended by the s52 Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
• The key element of the defence is that the defendant needs to be suffering from an abnormality of mental functioning (Byrne).
• Abnormality of mental functioning

  Defined as 'a state of mind so different from that of an ordinary human being that the reasonable man would term it as abnormal'. (Byrne).
• This abnormality must arise from a recognised medical condition.
• Conditions have been confirmed by cases and include Battered spouse syndrome (Aluwahlia), depression, psychotic disorders (Byrne), PMT (English), post natal depression (Reynolds), alcohol dependency syndrome (Wood).
• Aluwahlia

  Battered spouse syndrome
• Byrne

  Psychotic disorders
• English

  PMT
• Reynolds

  Post natal depression
• Wood

  Alcohol dependency syndrome
• The abnormality must substantially impair the defendants responsibility to do one of the 3 things in 1(a).

  These are to understand the nature of their conduct, to form a rational judgement or to exercise self control.
• The 3 things in 1(a)

  1. To understand the nature of their conduct
  2. To form a rational judgement
  3. To exercise self control
• The term substantial has been confirmed by Golds to not mean total or trivial or minimal but something in between - this is a question of degree for the jury.
• These elements then provide an explanation for the defendants conduct.
• If relevant:

  The relevance of intoxication and diminished responsibility have been confirmed in Gittens and Dietschmann - the jury must ignore the intoxication and make a decision only on the abnormality of the mind - would the defendant have still carried out their actions only based on the abnormality?
• If relevant:

  The case of Wood deals with Alcohol dependent syndrome, this is a recognised medical condition and therefore can be taken into account.