R v Blaue
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE LAWTON |
| Judgment Date | 16 July 1975 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1975] EWCA Crim J0716-1 |
| Docket Number | No. 4512/C/74 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Date | 16 July 1975 |
[1975] EWCA Crim J0716-1
Lord Justice Lawton
Mr. Justice Thompson
and
Mr. Justice Shaw
No. 4512/C/74
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
MR. J. COMYN, Q.C. and MR. R. M. STEWART appeared as Counsel for the Appellant.
MR. D. HERROD, Q.C. AND MR. FENWICK appeared as Counsel for the Crown.
On 17th October, 1974 at Teesside Crown Court after a trial before Mocatta, J. the Appellant was acquitted of the murder of a girl named Jacolyn Woodhead but was convicted of her manslaughter on the ground of diminsihed responsibility (count 1). He was also convicted of wounding this girl with intent to do her grievous bodily harm (count 2) and of indecently assaulting her (count 3). He pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting two other women (counts 4 and 5). He was sentenced to life imprisonment on counts 1 and 2 and to concurrent sentences of twelve months' imprisonment on counts 3, 4 and 5.
He appeals with the leave of this Court against his conviction on count 1 and, if his appeal is successful, he applies for leave to appeal against his sentence on count 2.
The victim was a young girl aged eighteen. She was a Jehovah's Witness. She professed the tenets of that sect and lived her life by them. During the late afternoon of 3rd May, 1974 the Appellant came into her house and asked her for sexual intercourse. She refused. He then attacked her with a knife inflicting four serious wounds. One pierced her lung. The Appellant ran away. The girl staggered out into the road. She collapsed outside a neighbour's house. An ambulance took her to hospital, where she arrived at about 7.30 p.m. Soon afterwards she was admitted to the intensive care ward. At about 8.30 p.m. She was examined by the surgical registrar who quickly decided that serious injury had been caused which would require surgery. As she had lost a lot of blood, before there could be an operation there would have to be a blood transfusion. As soon as the girl appreciated that the surgeon was thinking of organising a blood transfusion for her, she said that she should not be given one and that she would not have one. To have one, she said, would be contrary to her religious beliefs as a Jehovah's Witness. She was told that if she did not have a blood transfusion she would die. She said that she did not care if she did die. She was asked to acknowledge in writing that she had refused to have a blood transfusion under any circumstances. She did so. The prosecution admitted at the trial that had she had a blood transfusion when advised to have one she would not have died. She did so at 12.45 a.m. the next day. The evidence called by the prosecution proved that at all relevant times she was conscious and decided as she did deliberately, and knowing what the consequences of her decision would be. In his final speech to the jury, Mr. Herrod for the prosecution accepted that the girl's refusal to have a blood transfusion was a cause of her death. The prosecution did not challenge the defence evidence that the Appellant was suffering from diminished responsibility.
Towards the end of the trial and before the summing-up started Counsel on both sides made submissions as to how the case should be put to the jury. Counsel then appearing for the Appellant invited the judge to direct the jury to acquit the Appellant generally on the count of murder. His argument was that the girl's refusal to have a blood transfusion had broken the chain of causation between the stabbing and her death. As an alternative he submitted that the jury should be left to decide whether the chain of causation had been broken. Mr. Herrod submitted that the Judge should direct the jury to convict, because no facts were in issue and when the law was applied to the facts there was only one possible verdict, viz. manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility.
When the Judge came to direct the jury on this issue he did so by telling them that they should apply their commonsense. He then went on to tell them they would get some help from the cases to which Counsel had referred in their speeches. He reminded them of what Lord Parker, C.J., had said in R. v. Smith, reported in (1959) 43 Criminal Appeal Reports at page 121 and what Maule J. had said 133 years before in R. v. Holland, reported in (1841) 2 M and R Ch. 331. He placed particular reliance on what the latter Judge had said. The jury, he said, might find it "most material and most helpful". He went on: "This is one of those relatively rare cases, you may think, with very little option open to you but to reach the conclusion that was reached by your predecessors as members of the jury in the Queen against Holland, namely 'yes' to the question of causation that the stabb was still, at the time of this girl's death, the operative cause of death - or a substantial cause of death. However, that is a matter for you to determine after you have withdrawn to consider your verdict." Mr. Comyn has criticised that direction on three grounds: first, because Holland should no longer be considered good law; secondly, because Smith, when rightly understood, does envisage the possibility of unreasonable conduct on the part of the victim breaking the chain of causation; and thirdly because the Judge in...
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