Murray, R. v

A conviction founded on a guilty plea may be unsafe where the defendant’s psychiatric condition materially affected the decision to plead guilty and the evidence establishes that the condition substantially diminished responsibility for the killing. In that circumstance, the Court of Appeal may quash a murder conviction and substitute manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility.

Where the offender continues to require and respond to psychiatric treatment, remains vulnerable to relapse, and may pose a danger if released before it is clinically safe, a hospital order with an unrestricted restriction order is an appropriate disposal.

The appellant killed her five-year-old daughter and pleaded guilty to murder. The medical evidence from both sides supported a plea of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility, but the appellant wished to be punished and regarded a murder conviction as appropriate. The psychiatrists considered that she was not unfit to plead in the legal sense.

She was sentenced to life imprisonment. She appealed against conviction, contending that her guilty plea to murder had been affected by paranoid schizophrenia and seeking substitution of a manslaughter conviction. The parties agreed that, if the appeal succeeded, the proper disposal would be a hospital order with an unlimited restriction order.

1. Appeal allowed. The conviction for murder was unsafe. Although the appellant was not regarded as legally unfit to plead, the latest medical evidence showed that her decision to plead guilty to murder was affected by her psychiatric condition. That same condition substantially diminished her responsibility for the killing.

2. The medical evidence had consistently supported a plea of guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. The court accepted the parties’ submission that it could quash the murder conviction and substitute that conviction. This result met the justice of the case.

3. The appellant suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. She continued to require, and was susceptible to, medical treatment. She remained vulnerable to psychotic relapse during periods of stress.

4. A restriction order was appropriate because premature release could present a danger to the appellant and others. As no reliable medical judgment could then be made about when community release would be safe, the restriction was to be unlimited in time.

5. The court quashed the murder conviction, substituted manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility, and made a hospital order for detention at the Edenfield Centre with an unrestricted restriction order.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Allowed the appeal against conviction, quashed the murder conviction, substituted manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility, and made a hospital order with an unlimited restriction order.

• Crown Court: Moses J sentenced the appellant to life imprisonment following her guilty plea to murder.