R v Bowen
Characteristics relevant to the reasonable firmness test in duress include those that make a person less able to resist pressure, such as age or recognised mental illness, but not low IQ alone.
Facts
Mr Bowen obtained electrical goods by deception for two men who threatened to petrol bomb him and his family if he did not do so. He had an IQ of 68, which was in the lowest two per cent of the population. He was convicted, and argued that the jury should have been told to consider his low IQ in applying the reasonable firmness test in duress.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction. Stuart-Smith LJ said that the mere fact that the defendant is more pliable, vulnerable, timid or susceptible to threats than a normal person does not mean that these are characteristics to be taken into account. But characteristics such as age, sex, pregnancy, serious physical disability or a recognised mental illness or psychiatric condition, which might make the defendant less able to resist pressure, may be relevant. Low IQ, short of mental impairment or mental defectiveness, was not a characteristic that made him less able to resist pressure.
Related cases on defences: self defence, duress and necessity
- Re A (Children) (Conjoined Twins: Surgical Separation) [2001] Fam 147
- Beckford v The Queen [1988] AC 130
- R (Collins) v Secretary of State for Justice [2016] EWHC 33 (Admin), [2016] QB 862
- R v Clegg [1995] 1 AC 482
- R v Conway [1989] QB 290
- R v Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273
- R v Gotts [1992] 2 AC 412
- R v Graham [1982] 1 WLR 294
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