DPP v Majewski
Voluntary intoxication is not a defence to crimes of basic intent, although it may negate the intention required for crimes of specific intent.
Facts
Mr Majewski took a large quantity of amphetamines and barbiturates and drank alcohol over a period of two days. He then got into a fight in a pub and assaulted several people, including police officers who came to arrest him. He said that he had no recollection of what had happened, because of the drink and drugs. He was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and assaulting police officers.
Legal principle
The House of Lords upheld the convictions. Voluntary intoxication can be a defence to crimes of specific intent, such as murder, where it prevents the defendant from forming the intention required, but it is not a defence to crimes of basic intent, such as assault, where recklessness is sufficient. Lord Elwyn-Jones LC said that a person who voluntarily takes drink or drugs and then commits a crime of basic intent is reckless, and that the course of conduct of getting intoxicated supplies the mens rea. The decision is based largely on public policy, to protect the public from violence by drunken people.
Related cases on defences: insanity, automatism and intoxication
- Attorney General for Northern Ireland v Gallagher [1963] AC 349
- Attorney General's Reference (No 2 of 1992) [1994] QB 91
- Hill v Baxter [1958] 1 QB 277
- M'Naghten's Case (1843) 10 Cl & F 200
- R v Bailey [1983] 1 WLR 760
- R v Burgess [1991] 2 QB 92
- R v Coley; R v McGhee; R v Harris [2013] EWCA Crim 223
- R v Hardie [1985] 1 WLR 64
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