Challen v Challen & Anor (Rev 1)

The forfeiture rule may apply to a manslaughter killing involving diminished responsibility where the killing was deliberate, intentional and unlawful. Before exercising the statutory discretion, the court must first decide whether the rule applies at all. If it does, the court must consider the conduct of the offender and deceased and all other material circumstances, and decide whether justice requires modification or exclusion of the rule. The relevant circumstances may include culpability, the relationship, the deceased’s contribution to the circumstances, the nature and gravity of the offence, testamentary intentions, the estate, the offender’s position and the interests of alternative beneficiaries. Relief remains fact-sensitive and exceptional. For the statutory time limit, conviction occurs on sentence, or on acceptance of the plea if that and sentence occur together, rather than when the plea is tendered.

The claimant killed her husband in 2010 and was convicted of murder in 2011. The Court of Appeal later quashed that conviction and ordered a retrial. In 2019 the Crown accepted her guilty plea to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility, and she was sentenced.

She applied under the Forfeiture Act 1982 for relief from the forfeiture rule. The issues were whether the application was in time, whether the forfeiture rule applied to the killing, and whether justice required the rule to be disapplied.

1. Timing. The application was in time. A previous murder conviction, later quashed, did not trigger the statutory period. Where an initial conviction is followed by an appeal and a later conviction, the later conviction is relevant.
2. The word conviction in section 2(3) of the Forfeiture Act 1982 refers to the point at which the defendant is sentenced. If the plea is accepted and sentence imposed on the same occasion, that occasion is decisive. The period does not begin when the defendant merely tenders the plea.
3. Threshold question. The court must first decide whether the forfeiture rule applies at all. A deliberate, intentional and unlawful killing may engage the rule even where diminished responsibility reduces murder to manslaughter. The claimant’s psychiatric illness and coercive control did not make the killing accidental or remove the rule.
4. Statutory discretion. Once the rule applies, the court must consider whether, having regard to the conduct of the offender and deceased and all other material circumstances, justice requires modification or exclusion. The factors identified by Mummery LJ in Dunbar v Plant are relevant, alongside the threshold analysis identified by Phillips LJ.
5. The deceased’s prolonged coercive and abusive conduct, the claimant’s dependency and psychiatric illness, the length and nature of the relationship, and the deceased’s significant contribution to the circumstances justified full disapplication. The decision was exceptional and did not establish that coercive control ordinarily warrants relief.

The forfeiture rule was disapplied on the facts of the case.

First-instance decision. The judgment records that the claimant’s earlier murder conviction was quashed by the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal, after which the matter was remitted for retrial. The present claim under the Forfeiture Act 1982 was then determined in the High Court.