Basic Intent

Following the House of Lords' decision in DPP v Majewski, the law is that if D is charged with an offence of 'basic intent' requiring subjective fault, and it is proved or admitted that D committed the external element, it is not permissible for the defence to argue that D acted without the required fault on account of self-induced intoxication. On this basis there is a rule of substantive law — the 'Majewski rule' — that D is liable for an offence of subjective recklessness if unaware of the relevant risk by virtue of his or her state of self-induced intoxication. Majewski was therefore held to have been properly convicted of the 'basic intent' offences of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and assault on a police officer in the execution of his duty.

The rule creates an important contrast with 'specific intent' offences, which require proof of a further purposive state of mind (such as an intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm for murder). Where voluntary intoxication genuinely prevents the prosecution proving that specific intent, D is not liable for the 'specific intent' offence of murder but D is liable for the alternative 'basic intent' offence of manslaughter. In Lipman, for example, D killed V by cramming bedclothes into her mouth while he had killed V in a state of self-induced intoxication that led him to believe he was fighting snakes; he escaped liability for murder but was convicted of manslaughter because the underlying unlawful act (battery) was a basic intent offence.