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Royal Courts of Justice

The Strand

London WC2

Tuesday 4th May 1999

B E F O R E :

THE VICE PRESIDENT

(LORD JUSTICE ROSE)

MRS JUSTICE EBSWORTH

and

MR JUSTICE MITCHELL

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R E G I N A

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STEPHEN WEEKES

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Computer Aided Transcript of the Stenograph Notes of

Smith Bernal Reporting Limited

180 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2HD

Tel No: 0171 421 4040 Fax No: 0171 831 8838

(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)

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MR N RUMFITT QC appeared on behalf of the Appellant

MISS R POULET QC appeared on behalf of the Crown

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JUDGMENT

( As Approved by the Court )

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Crown Copyright

Tuesday 4th May 1999

THE VICE PRESIDENT: On 18th February 1999, a differently constituted division of this Court quashed the appellant's conviction for murder and substituted one of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

The appellant had been convicted at the Central Criminal Court on 22nd May 1998, following a trial before His Honour Judge Hutchinson and he had been sentenced to life imprisonment following his conviction for murder.

The facts can, for present purposes, be very shortly stated. In the early hours of Sunday 7th December 1997, following an earlier encounter between them, an hour or two before, the appellant used violence to a man called Anthony Gray which caused his death. The defence of diminished responsibility was not run at the appellant's trial because he did not wish it to be run. But there was abundant evidence which justified the Court, as we have already indicated, quashing that conviction, when evidence was presented for it in support of the defence of diminished responsibility.

The question which arises today is what, following the conviction for manslaughter, should be the appropriate penalty in this case? There are a number of reports of a medical character before this Court, a number of which have been previously before the courts. The two most recent reports come from Dr Hamilton, dated 27th April 1999, and Dr Akinkunmi, dated 26th April 1999. Those reports, in confirmation of the views expressed in the earlier reports, to which it is unnecessary specifically to refer, confirm, with one voice, that the appellant sadly suffers from a mental illness and it is of a nature and degree making it appropriate that he be detained in hospital. Dr Akinkunmi has given evidence in support of his report before this Court today. His conclusion is that the most suitable method of dealing with the appellant is by means of a hospital order under section 37 of the Mental Health Act 1983.

Furthermore, it is the view of the doctors, confirmed by Dr Akinkunmi in his oral evidence before the Court, that the nature of this offence and the risk of further offences being committed is such that it is necessary to protect the public from serious harm by a restriction order under section 41 of the same Act without limit of time.

That accordingly is the sentence which we pass: a section 37 order together with a section 41 restriction order, without limit of time.