R v Martin (Anthony)

Ratio Decidendi

তথ্য

Tony Martin, a farmer who lived alone in an isolated and repeatedly burgled farmhouse in Norfolk, was awoken at night by two intruders who had broken in to burgle the property. Using an unlicensed pump-action shotgun, he fired several shots in the dark, killing one of the burglars — a 16-year-old — and wounding the other. He was convicted of murder; on appeal he relied on self-defence and on fresh psychiatric evidence.

রায়ের সারসংক্ষেপ

The Court of Appeal dismissed Martin's appeal against conviction on the ground of self-defence but allowed it to the extent of substituting a conviction for manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility. On self-defence, the court reaffirmed that the defendant must be judged on the facts as he honestly believed them to be, and that the force used must be reasonable in those circumstances; but it held that a defendant's psychiatric characteristics (such as a tendency to perceive greater danger) are not generally to be taken into account in deciding whether the degree of force was reasonable, so the plea of self-defence failed. However, fresh evidence that Martin suffered from a paranoid personality disorder that substantially impaired his mental responsibility for the killing founded the partial defence of diminished responsibility, reducing murder to manslaughter. The case prompted public debate about householders' rights, later addressed by s.76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 and the 'householder' amendment in s.43 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013.

মূল উদ্ধৃতি

পরবর্তী ব্যবহার