Law Weblog

Intoxication – self-defence – murder – rule in O’Grady correct

Friday 28 October 2005 at 1:10 pm | In News | Post Comment

R v Hatton [2005] (CA)
[Intoxication – rule in O’Grady is correct – intoxicated mistake not relevant to self-defence]
D beat the deceased to death with a sledgehammer after drinking over 20 pints of beer His recollection of events was unclear but he believed that he was under attack. The issue was the reasonableness of D’s reaction as he had believed the facts to be, even if that belief was mistaken and the mistake was caused by his intoxication.

Held: In self-defence, a mistake induced by drunkenness cannot be relied on. The decision in O’Grady was not obiter simply because it was a case of manslaughter, and that, accordingly, anything said about the law of murder had to have been unnecessary to the decision. The issue considered by the court in O’Grady had been whether a defendant who raised the issue of self-defence was entitled to be judged on the basis of what he mistakenly believed to be the situation when that mistaken belief was brought about by self-induced intoxication by alcohol or drugs. To that issue, the court had ruled that he was not. The general principle in O’Grady was not obiter so far as the law of murder was concerned that issue had not been restricted to the offence of manslaughter.

Guilty