Law Weblog

Defences – use of force – self-defence when D is the aggressor

Rashford, R v (2005) CA
D stabbed V in the chest following an argument over a trivial matter. D said it was an accident. D and (two others) visited the V to “teach him a lesson”. The judge directed the jury that D had taken violence to the scene.

Held: If D started violence by provoking it or by entering into it willingly he could still rely on self-defence if his victim had retaliated, but not on the facts of this case.

A defendant can rely on self-defence if faced with violence that makes him think he was in immediate danger from which he had no other means of escape (using no more violence than was necessary to protect himself). The defendant had been the aggressor *throughout* the incident, it could not follow that he had acted in lawful self-defence. It followed that the judge’s direction was defective.

Guilty
Comment: It was puzzling in the light of the evidence and the nature of the defendant’s principal defence that a direction as to self-defence had been given at all. It was impossible, for practical purposes, for self-defence to have succeeded on the evidence.