R v Egan
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 13 May 1992 |
| Date | 13 May 1992 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Justice Watkins, Mr Justice Macpherson of Cluny and Mr Justice Judge
Criminal evidence - diminished responsibility - effect of alcohol
Where the effect of alcohol had to be considered in relation to a defence of diminished responsibility under the Homicide Act 1957, the jury should be directed in line with R v GittensELR ([1984] QB 698) and R v AtkinsonUNK ([1985] Crim LR 314), the high authority on the point.
The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, so stated in dismissing an appeal by Shaun Daniel Egan against his conviction on December 15, 1989, at Cardiff Crown Court (Mr Justice French and a jury) of murder.
Mr Christopher Pitchford, QC and Mr James Tillyard, assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals, for the appellant; Mr John Griffith Williams, QC, and Mr Richard Twomlow for the Crown.
LORD JUSTICE WATKINS, giving the judgment of the court, said that the appellant, whose mentality was on the border of the subnormal, had, when under the influence of alcohol, forcefully and unlawfully entered the bungalow of an elderly widow, severely assaulted and killed her.
His plea of guilty to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility was not accepted by the Crown and he was eventually convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Counsel for the defence argued that the judge's summing up contained flawed directions on the effect of alcohol in relation to diminished responsibility.
He submitted that the approval of the Court of Appeal in R v Atkinsonof the commentary of Professor J C Smith upon GittensUNK ([1984] Crim LR 554) was not only obiter but misguided in that Professor Smith's suggested questions for the jury: "Have the defence satisfied you on the balance of probabilities, that if the defendant had not taken drink, (i) he would have killed as he in fact did, and (ii) he would have been under diminished responsibility when he did so?" were irreconcilable with the ratio ofGittens itself, which was that the issue for the jury was not one of choice between causes or substantial causes of the killing but whether abnormality of mind arising from admissible causes substantially impaired the defendant's mental responsibility within the meaning of "substantial" set out in R v LloydELR ([1967] 1 QB 175).
That submission was misconceived. Far from being...
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