R v Challen
Fresh evidence of coercive control and mental disorders led the Court of Appeal to quash the murder conviction of a woman who killed her controlling husband.
Facts
Sally Challen killed her husband, Richard, with a hammer in 2010, after a 40 year relationship in which, she said, he had subjected her to controlling and humiliating behaviour. She was convicted of murder in 2011. Her appeal was based on fresh psychiatric evidence that she was suffering from mental disorders at the time of the killing, and on the developing understanding of coercive control, which became a criminal offence in 2015.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal quashed the murder conviction and ordered a retrial, because the fresh psychiatric evidence, which had not been available at her trial, could have supported a defence of diminished responsibility. Lady Justice Hallett said that coercive control was not itself a defence, but that the evidence about the nature of the relationship was relevant to understanding her state of mind. Before the retrial, the prosecution accepted her plea of guilty to manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility, and she was released, having already served nine years.
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 Byrne [1960] 2 QB 396
- 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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