Alec Samuels explores a defence that can reduce murder to manslaughter
- Covers a range of approaches to the partial defence of loss of control.
Charged with murder, the defendant D pleads loss of control, manslaughter: a partial defence introduced in 2010 by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, ss 54-55. The basic criterion is normality, a person of D’s sex and age with a normal degree of tolerance and self-restraint might have reacted in the same or in a similar way to D. How would the juror have expected the average man in the street to have reacted? That is the objective approach. The ordinary average phlegmatic Englishman might get upset and angry but he does not normally ‘lose his cool’ and resort to killing. Therefore, the defendant raising loss of control is often something of an ‘odd ball’, a bit eccentric. However, the law does recognise the relevance of the circumstances of D. D may meet the requirements of the qualifying trigger. He might have feared extreme violence from the victim V or a third party, and he ‘snapped’. Something might have
