Using Cases to illustrate your points critically, decribe the Homocide Act 1957 and include the subsequent judicial interpretations of it.

Two types of intention need to be discussed - Direct intention refers to the direct aim or purpose of a D's act, Oblique or indirect intention is where the D does not have a direct aim or purpose but is aware that harm is virtually certain. The most recent authorities on determining whether the defendant had the necessary intent, and how the jury should be directed on this issue, are the cases on R v Nedrick and R v Woolin. The Criminal Justice Act of 1967 discussed that the jury would infer the intention the D had, this caused problems and therefore Lord Steyn in R v. Woolin stated that the jury are not entitled to "find" the necessary intention unless it was virtually certain that death or serious bodily harm would occur from D's action. Woolin bought about a 2-part test to be considered in murder cases, which is to ask whether death or serious harm was a virtual certainty of D's actions and whether D appreciated that such was the case.

Provocation is defined in S.3 of the Homicide Act 1957; a defendant must show that he or she was provoked (R v. Acott) by something said or done (R v. Doughty) which made the D suffer a sudden and temporary loss of self-control and a reasonable person would have done the same thing. There have been many problems concerning the words "sudden and temporary" loss of self-control. In R v. Luc Thiet Thuan, Lord Goff stated that the provoking act that causes the D to lose self-control might be the last of a series of acts, which finally provoked the D to lose self-control.

Devlin LJ in R v. Duffy created a requirement that stated that the D must have suffered a "sudden and temporary loss of self-control"; if there is a period of time between the provocation and the act of the D then the law assumes the D has killed in anger. A problem occurs in cases of murder arising out of domestic violence where in the majority of cases a woman has suffered provocation, over the years from a partner and then kills that partner as a result of a final act of provocation. This is referred to as a "slow burn" and goes against the test laid out in R v. Duffy. Women suffering from this sort of provocation are said to have suffered "Battered woman's syndrome". This was seen in the case of R v Humphreys (1995) and It was also discussed in Ahluwalia that although it is necessary to show that the D suffered a loss of self-control because of provocation, a break in the time period between the provocation and death does not remove the availability of the defence. The sudden and temporary loss of self-control will only become harder to prove.

In provocation cases it must also be asked whether a "reasonable man" would have lost control and acted as D did. The case of DPP v Camplin allowed juries to take account of D's characteristics. Lord Diplock set out 2 separate distinct issues, the gravity of the provocation and the power of self-control. These may be psychological as well as physical characteristics (R v. Dryden). However the case of R v. Smith (Morgan) stated that it was no longer necessary to refer to the "reasonable man" but instead ask what could "reasonably be expected" of the D and therefore the Camplin distinctions were abolished. The case of A-G for Jersey v Holley restored the Camplin distinctions as it overruled Smith (Morgan) and followed Luc Thiet Thuan.

Diminished responsibility is defined in S.2 (1) of the Homicide Act 1957 as being a defence to murder and the D will not be convicted of murder but of a lesser offence, if he is seen as suffering from an abnormality of the mind arising from an arrested or retarded development of the mind or an inherent cause or an injury or disease which substantially impaired the defendant's responsibility for his acts and omissions in doing or being a party to the killing. The burden of proof is on the D to prove they had diminished responsibility.

Lord Parker CJ in R v. Byrne stated that an "abnormality of the mind...means a state of mind no different from that of ordinary human beings that the reasonable man would term is abnormal". An abnormality of the mind can arise in one of three ways, through an arrested or retarded development of the mind, which is permanent (R v. Egan), any "inherent" causes, which covers all mental disorders.

The case of R v. Sanderson shows the difficulties that the jury may face where a D is intoxicated and suffering an abnormality of the mind. It has been doubted whether the temporary effect of alcohol can bring the D within the scope of S.2 of the 1957 Act. In the case of R v. Fenton it was first established that drink does not give rise to an abnormality of the mind due to inherent causes.

The court of Appeal in R v. Gittens and R v. Atkinson showed that the jury should concentrate on asking whether the D would have killed as he did if he had not been drunk and if the answer to this was yes then they should ask whether he was actually suffering from diminished responsibility when he did so. The case of R v. Tandy stated that an alcoholic state arising from voluntary drinking did not amount to a defence it could only arise from an abnormality of the mind, which is induced by the disease of alcoholism, which impaired mental responsibility substantially. In R v. Dietschmann, Lord Hutton stated that there are two circumstances where the effects of alcohol can be regarded as an abnormality of the mind, where the brain becomes damaged from taking alcohol and that the defendant involuntarily took alcohol.

There are 2 types of Manslaughter - voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary manslaughter is an offence that could be referred to as murder except for certain circumstances or situations, which reduce the liability of the D, even though they have the actus reus and mens rea for murder. Involuntary murder is where D does not intend to kill or cause GBH but D has faulted and therefore can be criminally convicted.

"Novus Actus Interveniens" an independent intervening act occurring one dying. However the "thin skull" rule shows that a D cannot argue that because of some weakness that the V has, that the cause of death was their own, the D must take them as they find them (R v. Blaue). If V dies because of some other cause of death then the offence of manslaughter is not committed even though the other elements of the offence including mens rea, are present. It is also unlikely that a claim that medical negligence caused someone's death would be successful, as cases in the past have not succeeded, (R v. Malcharek and Steel) the case of R v. Jordan being the exception as it has been shown that only in the most unusual cases, will medical treatment break the chain of causation.

Involuntary manslaughter can be caused by either unlawful act (constructive) manslaughter or gross negligence manslaughter. Unlawful act manslaughter requires three elements to be proven, that the D caused an unlawful act (R v. Lamb) that this was a dangerous act (R v. Church), which was a direct cause of the V's death (R v. Good fellow). Phillimore J stated in the case of R v. Lowe that an omission cannot constitute an unlawful act and a D cannot be charged with manslaughter even if the omission is deliberate.

Gross negligence manslaughter was defined in the case of R v. Adamako as needing certain elements to be successful, the existence of a duty of care, breach of that duty of care causing death and gross negligence that the jury consider justifies criminal conviction. Lord Mackay in this case stated that the "ordinary principles of law of negligence apply to ascertain whether or not D has been in breach of a duty of care towards the V" To establish to whom a duty is owed, the principles laid out, in Donoghue v. Stevenson, Lord Aitkin in the House of Lords said that you must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour, i.e. persons so closely and directly affected by D's act, that D ought to have them in contemplation as being affected when D directs their mind to these acts or omissions. It must be established at what point that D breaches the duty in the case of R v. Bateman, Lord Hewart CJ explained the gross negligence test however Lord Mackay in Adamako stated that the test for the jury to consider was whether the extent to which D's conduct departed from the proper standard of care incumbent on him was such that it should be judged criminal. The case of R v. Misra challenged the decision in Adamako the Court of Appeal rejected the claims and stated that Adamako still stands.

Faaiz Mahmood