Loss of Control in UK Law

The law expects people to exercise control over their emotions. A tendency to violent rages or childish tantrums is a defect in character rather than an excuse. The jury must think that the circumstances were such as to make the loss of self-control sufficiently excusable to reduce the gravity of the offence from murder to manslaughter.

Damages in consequence of a breach of a person's private rights are not the same as vindicatory damages to vindicate some constitutional right. In the present context, the damages are an award to compensate for the loss or diminution of a right to control formerly private information and for the distress that the respondents could justifiably have felt because their private information had been exploited, and are assessed by reference to that loss.

He should then explain to them that the reasonable man referred to in the question is a person having the power of self-control to be expected of an ordinary person of the sex and age of the accused, but in other respects sharing such of the accused's characteristics as they think would affect the gravity of the provocation to him; and that the question is not merely whether such a person would in like circumstances be provoked to lose his self-control but also would react to the provocation as the accused did.

Mr Tomlinson disavowed, as I have said, reliance on any facts affecting any individual represented claimant. Finally, in this connection, once the claim is understood in the way I have described, it is impossible to imagine that Google could raise any defence to one represented claimant that did not apply to all others. The represented parties do, therefore, in the relevant sense have the same interest.

The judge explained 30 why he thought that the breaches and the losses would vary across the represented class. He was concentrating on the amount of data removed without consent and the differing impact on individual represented claimants. It will take into account, at least, the facts of the tort proved against Google generically, and the effect, in terms of loss of control of personal data, that the breaches would have on any person affected by Google's unlawful actions.

This requires a common sense judgment based on an analysis of all the evidence. To the extent that the evidence may be in dispute, the judge has to recognise that the jury may accept the evidence which is most favourable to the defendant, and reject that which is most favourable to the prosecution, and so tailor the ruling accordingly.

Mr Escott-Cox submits the prosecution had a powerful case negativing loss of self-control whether on the evidence of the prosecution witnesses, or on what the appellant said in the aftermath of the killing or on what she said in evidence. Mr Mansfield sought to discount what the appellant said as being unreliable because the two characteristics we have identified caused her to be mentally in a dissociated state.