BAILII is celebrating 24 years of free online access to the law! Would you consider making a contribution?
No donation is too small. If every visitor before 31 December gives just £1, it will have a significant impact on BAILII's ability to continue providing free access to the law.
Thank you very much for your support!
[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback] | ||
England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions |
||
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions >> Marsh v Director of Public Prosecutions [2015] EWHC 1022 (Admin) (06 March 2015) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2015/1022.html Cite as: [2015] EWHC 1022 (Admin) |
[New search] [Printable RTF version] [Help]
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Strand London WC2A 2LL |
||
B e f o r e :
( Sitting as a High Court Judge)
____________________
MARSH | Appellant | |
v | ||
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS | Respondent |
____________________
WordWave International Limited
A Merrill Communications Company
165 Fleet Street London EC4A 2DY
Tel No: 020 7404 1400 Fax No: 020 7404 1424
(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
Mr B Lloyd (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service) appeared on behalf of the Respondent
____________________
Crown Copyright ©
1. Were we entitled to consider whether the amount of force used by the appellant was reasonable when no decision could be made as to who the aggressor actually was?
2. Were we entitled to consider whether the amount of force used by the appellant was reasonable when the case advanced by the Crown was that the appellant was the aggressor and therefore any force used could not have been in lawful self defence in any event?
i. "The prosecution had discharged its burden to satisfy us beyond reasonable doubt that the appellant went over the top and used force out of all proportion to the anticipated attack."
i. "19: We would agree that the mere fact that a defendant goes somewhere in order to exact revenge from the victim does not of itself rule out the possibility that in any violence that ensues self-defence is necessarily not available as a defence. It must depend on the circumstances.
ii. [...]
iii. Dyson LJ proceeded to state that:
iv. ' in Burns v HM Advocate [1995] SLT 1090 at 1093H, the Lord Advocate General said this:
v. '... it is now clear that the propositions in Hume and Macdonald that the accused must not have started the trouble, or provoked the quarrel, are stated too broadly. It is not accurate to say that a person who kills someone in a quarrel which he himself started, by provoking it or entering into it willingly, cannot plead self defence if his victim then retaliates. The question whether the plea of self defence is available depends, in a case of that kind, on whether the retaliation is such that the accused is entitled then to defend himself. That depends upon whether the violence offered by the victim was so out of proportion to the accused's own actings as to give rise to the reasonable apprehension that he was in an immediate danger from which he had no other means of escape, and whether the violence which he then used was no more than was necessary to preserve his own life or protect himself from serious injury.'
vi. In our judgment this passage in the judgment of the Lord Justice General should be regarded as accurately representing English law as well."
vii. .
i. "There may be a temptation whenever it is open to a jury to conclude that the defendant went to an incident out of revenge or was the aggressor to direct the jury that if they reach that conclusion then self defence cannot avail the defendant."
1. "Were we entitled to consider whether the amount of force used by the appellant was reasonable when the case advanced by the Crown was the appellant was the aggressor, and therefore any force used could not have been lawful self defence?"