R v Martin (Anthony)
Psychiatric conditions are not generally relevant to whether the force used in self defence was reasonable, but may support diminished responsibility.
Facts
Tony Martin, a farmer, lived alone in an isolated farmhouse in Norfolk that had been burgled several times. One night, two burglars broke into the house. He fired a shotgun at them in the dark, killing one, a 16 year old boy, who was shot in the back as he tried to escape, and wounding the other. He was convicted of murder. On appeal, he relied on fresh psychiatric evidence that he was suffering from a paranoid personality disorder, which made him perceive a greater danger than an ordinary person would.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal quashed the murder conviction and substituted manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility, based on the fresh psychiatric evidence. However, Lord Woolf CJ said that, in deciding whether the force used was reasonable for the purposes of self defence, the jury should not generally take into account the defendant's psychiatric condition, except in exceptional circumstances that would make the evidence especially probative. The case led to public debate about the rights of householders, and later to changes in the law.
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 Bowen [1997] 1 WLR 372
- 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
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