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H. M. Advocate v Campbell

Session Cases Cited in Precedent Map Related
JurisdictionScotland
Judgment Date27 September 1920
Date27 September 1920
Docket NumberNo. 1.
CourtHigh Court of Justiciary
Court of Justiciary
High Court

Lord Justice-Clerk.

No. 1.
H. M. Advocate
and
Campbell.

Crime—Mens rea—Murder—Culpable homicide—Defence of drunkenness.

At the trial of a husband for the murder of his wife it was proved that the wife's death was caused by violent blows with his fists inflicted upon her by the husband when the latter was in a state of intoxication. The husband was not insane, but there was evidence that he had at one time been injured in the head, and was abnormally susceptible to alcohol, and abnormally violent when under its influence. In defence it was contended that the intoxicated condition of the accused at the time when the assault was committed reduced the crime from murder to culpable homicide.

Direction to the jury (by the Lord Justice-Clerk) that the accused was guilty of murder, unless at the time of the assault he was, owing to drunkenness, in such a condition that he had not the intention, and could not form the intention, of doing serious injury to his wife.

The law relating to the defence of drunkenness, as laid down by the House of Lords in Director of Public Prosecutions v. BeardUNK, (1920) 14 Cr. App. R. 159, held applicable in Scotland.

Nicholas Page Campbell was tried in the High Court at Edinburgh before the Lord Justice-Clerk and a jury on an indictment which set forth ‘that on 29th or 30th July 1920, in the house occupied by you at 8 Nicolson Square, Edinburgh, you did assault Margaret Hendry Campbell, your wife, beat her with your fists on her head and face, knock her down, and did murder her, and you have been previously convicted of assault.’

The facts disclosed at the trial were to the effect that the accused came home in a state of acute intoxication; that he attacked his wife, striking her repeated blows of great violence on the head with his fists; that she was several times knocked down; that about an hour afterwards she became unconscious, and remained unconscious until she died some fifteen hours later. The medical evidence was that she died of concussion, intra-cranial hæmorrhage, and shock, the result of direct violence, namely, repeated blows. Evidence was also led that, as a result of an injury to his head some ten years before, the accused was abnormally susceptible to alcohol, and abnormally violent when under its influence.

Counsel for the Crown contended that the drunkenness of the accused did not reduce the crime from that of murder to culpable homicide. Reference was made to H. M. Advocate v. Macdonald,1 and to Director of Public Prosecutions v. BeardUNK.2

Counsel for the accused contended that the accused was guilty only of culpable homicide. There was no evidence of malice on the part of the accused against his wife; there was no reliable evidence of any quarrel; it...

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