R v Byrne
Abnormality of mind for diminished responsibility includes the inability to exercise willpower to control physical acts.
Facts
Mr Byrne strangled a young woman in a YWCA hostel and then mutilated her body. He was a sexual psychopath who suffered from violent and perverted sexual desires that he found difficult or impossible to control. At his trial for murder, he relied on the defence of diminished responsibility under section 2 of the Homicide Act 1957. The judge directed the jury that difficulty in controlling his desires was not abnormality of mind.
Legal principle
The Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the murder conviction and substituted manslaughter. Lord Parker CJ said that abnormality of mind means a state of mind so different from that of ordinary human beings that the reasonable man would term it abnormal. It is wide enough to cover the mind's activities in all its aspects, not only the perception of physical acts and matters and the ability to form a rational judgment as to whether an act is right or wrong, but also the ability to exercise willpower to control physical acts in accordance with that rational judgment. The definition of diminished responsibility was replaced by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
Related cases on murder and voluntary manslaughter
- Attorney General for Jersey v Holley [2005] UKPC 23, [2005] 2 AC 580
- R v Ahluwalia [1992] 4 All ER 889
- R v Asmelash [2013] EWCA Crim 157, [2014] QB 103
- R v Challen [2019] EWCA Crim 916
- R v Clinton [2012] EWCA Crim 2, [2013] QB 1
- R v Dawes; R v Hatter; R v Bowyer [2013] EWCA Crim 322, [2014] 1 WLR 947
- R v Dietschmann [2003] UKHL 10, [2003] 1 AC 1209
- R v Dowds [2012] EWCA Crim 281, [2012] 1 WLR 2576
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