Psychiatry and the New Diminished Responsibility Plea: Uneasy Bedfellows?
| Published date | 01 April 2012 |
| Date | 01 April 2012 |
| Author | Nicola Wake |
| DOI | 10.1350/1740-5580-76.2.122 |
| Subject Matter | Court of Appeal |
benefit from their own crime ‘one consequence of which is that his
children have become solely dependent on him’ (at [49]).
The court reviewed earlier appeals concerned with sentencing deci-
sions of parental child abduction offences. All involved different facts
with only one successful appeal for a reduction in sentence. R vDryden-
Hall [1997] 2 Cr App (S) 235 could be distinguished from the present
appeals. The appellant was a mother who abducted her child for a period
of 21 months, significantly less than in the present cases. She was
granted a reduction in sentence as a result of the broken bond between
herself and the abducted child. The child no longer wanted a relation-
ship with her. In this respect the harm caused as a consequence of her
actions was not as severe to the child and the left-behind parent com-
pared with the present appeals. The Court of Appeal concluded that,
following its earlier decision, sentencing decisions for parental child
abduction offences require a significant element of deterrence (at [53]).
It is therefore unsurprising that both appellants’ appeals were dismissed
in the present cases. The Court of Appeal’s strong stance in these cases of
‘outrageous circumstances’ is commendable.
Vanessa Bettinson
Psychiatry and the New Diminished Responsibility Plea:
Uneasy Bedfellows?
R vBrown (Robert) [2011] EWCA Crim 2796
Keywords Coroners and Justice Act; Diminished Responsibility;
Murder; Manslaughter; Sentencing
In this case the Court of Appeal considered whether the words ‘sub-
stantially impaired’ under s. 52(1)(b) of the Coroners and Justice Act
2009 (‘the 2009 Act’) imported a different test from that which was
applied to the term ‘substantial impairment’ contained within the origi-
nal s. 2(1) of the Homicide Act 1957 (‘the 1957 Act’). In essence, the
primary issue was whether the ‘less than total but more than trivial’
ruling adumbrated in R v Ramchurn [2010] EWCA Crim 194 continued
to apply to the revised plea. The Court of Appeal also reviewed the
relationship between Sch. 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (‘the CJA
2003’) and sentencing in manslaughter cases.
On 31 October 2010, the appellant (B) met his estranged wife at her
home and killed her by repeatedly and violently striking her over the
head with a hammer. The children of the couple were in a room two
doors away when their mother was attacked. The daughter witnessed
her father (B) wrapping up her mother’s body before placing it into the
car. As B drove the children to his house, his son asked if B was taking
the victim to hospital, but B never did so, and he failed to call an
ambulance. Having left the children with his girlfriend, B drove to Great
The Journal of Criminal Law
122
To continue reading
Request your trial