Court of Appeal
| DOI | 10.1350/jcla.2009.73.3.566 |
| Date | 01 June 2009 |
| Published date | 01 June 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Court of Appeal |
Court of Appeal
Unfit to Plead and Diminished Responsibility
R v Moyle (Peter Geoffrey) [2008] EWCA Crim 3059
Keywords Murder; Manslaughter; Diminished responsibility; Fitness to
plead; Fresh evidence
The victim (B), aged 67, was knocked to the ground outside a public
house and repeatedly kicked by the appellant (M), who suffered from
paranoid schizophrenia. B sustained serious head injuries which caused
his death. The issues for the jury were, whether M had caused the injury
from which B died, whether he had intended either to kill B or cause
him really serious injury and, if so, whether he had been provoked by B
to act as he did. M was subsequently convicted of murder and appealed
against his conviction on the grounds that he was unfit to plead at the
time of the trial. It was further submitted that, if fit to plead, he was, at
the time of the alleged offence, suffering from such abnormality of mind
as substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts, by virtue
of the Homicide Act 1957, s. 2. Neither fitness to plead or diminished
responsibility were raised at the trial.
H
ELD
,
APPEAL ALLOWED IN PART
. The court did not accept that M’s
medical condition so impaired his ability to communicate with his legal
advisers or understand proceedings. An analysis of his conduct at the
time of the trial did not, when read with medical evidence, demonstrate
that he was unfit to plead, as defined by law. M was able to instruct his
lawyers, understand proceedings and give evidence, notwithstanding
his delusions.
With regard to the defence of diminished responsibility, there was
strong medical evidence to show that M had been suffering from such
abnormality of mind as substantially impaired his mental responsibility
for his acts. M’s decisions at the time of trial were affected by the illness
itself; the sense of attack on his personal integrity leading to an unwill-
ingness to disclose the extent of his health problems and the fear of
being returned to hospital. According to the court, there could be no
suggestion that M was holding back on a defence of diminished respons-
ibility for tactical reasons connected with his trial. Consequently, the
conviction for murder was quashed and substituted with a conviction
for manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility. A hospital
order combined with a restriction order, without limit of time, was
imposed.
C
OMMENTARY
Fitness to plead
In deciding whether M was fit to plead, the court confirmed that there
was no link between unfitness to plead and a person whose case comes
196 The Journal of Criminal Law (2009) 73 JCL 196–202
doi:1350/jcla.2009.73.3.566
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