Christian, R. v

A trial judge must leave the partial defence of loss of control to the jury only where there is sufficient evidence of each statutory component. The judge must assume that the jury may take a view favourable to the defendant, but must rigorously evaluate the whole evidence, including its weight and quality.

The defence may be withheld where the defendant’s intentional and extreme violence could not conceivably be a response of the statutory notional person. An appellate court will not readily interfere with a reasoned evaluation of that kind. A jury may compare an accused’s account with wound-trajectory evidence. Decisions on bad-character evidence under different gateways remain separate discretionary questions.

The applicant was convicted at Maidstone Crown Court on 21 October 2016 of murdering two people, wounding one person with intent, and unlawfully wounding another. His case was that he had acted in self-defence during an incident in his bedroom.

Before the jury retired, the trial judge declined to leave the partial defence of loss of control under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The judge also indicated that, if the applicant repeated allegations that others involved in the incident had been violent, his previous convictions for violence could be admitted as bad-character evidence.

Following a single judge’s refusal, the applicant renewed his application for leave to appeal against conviction. He challenged those rulings and the judge’s direction that the jury could compare his account with the trajectory of the victims’ wounds.

1. The renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction was refused. The trial judge had correctly withheld the partial defence of loss of control.

2. Under Coroners and Justice Act 2009, section 54, the judge had to decide whether there was sufficient evidence of every component of the defence. Following R v Gurpinar & others [2015] 1 Cr App R 31, that task required a rigorous evaluation of the whole evidence, while proceeding on the basis that the jury might take a view of it favourable to the defendant. The judge was entitled to consider the weight and quality of the evidence without usurping the jury’s function.

3. The first two components were capable of being satisfied: the jury could find a loss of control caused by fear of serious violence. The third, objective component was not. On the assumed facts, intentional ferocious multiple stabbings were so extreme and prolonged that a person of the applicant’s age and sex, with normal tolerance and self-restraint, could not conceivably have reacted in the same or a similar way. The judge’s reasoned assessment was therefore sound, and the Court would not readily interfere with it.

4. The bad-character rulings concerned distinct issues. The earlier refusal to admit convictions under gateway D of section 101(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 did not preclude a later indication concerning gateway G after the applicant proposed to attack the character of other witnesses. The judge properly confined the relevance of the convictions to the credibility of the applicant’s evidence, and their admission did not make the proceedings unfair.

5. The jury were entitled to compare the applicant’s evidence about the struggle with the pathological evidence on the direction of the wounds. No expert opinion on the relative positions of the participants was required before the jury could assess whether his account was consistent with that evidence.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) A single judge refused leave to appeal. On renewal, the Court refused leave against the convictions.
• Crown Court at Maidstone The applicant was convicted on 21 October 2016 of two murders, wounding with intent, and unlawful wounding.