Homicide Act 1957
CHAPTER 11
An Act to make for England and Wales (and for courts-martial wherever
sitting) amendments of law relating to homicide and the trial and punishment of
murder, and for Scotland amendments of the law relating to the trial and
punishment of murder and attempts to murder
[21st March 1957]
BE IT ENACTED by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice
and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present
Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows
Part I
Amendments of Law of England and Wales as to fact of Murder
1 Abolition of "constructive
malice"
(1) Where a person kills another in the course or furtherance of some other
offence, the killing shall not amount to murder unless done with the same malice
aforethought (express or implied) as is required for a killing to amount to
murder when not done in the course or furtherance of another offence.
(2) For the purposes of the foregoing subsection, a killing done in the
course or for the purpose of resisting an officer of justice, or of resisting or
avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest, or of effecting or assisting an escape
or rescue from legal custody, shall be treated as a killing in the course or
furtherance of an offence.
2 Persons suffering from
diminished responsibility
(1) Where a person kills or is a party to the killing of another, he shall
not be convicted of murder if he was suffering from such abnormality of mind
(whether arising from a condition of arrested or retarded development of mind or
any inherent causes or induced by disease or injury) as substantially impaired
his mental responsibility for his acts and omissions in doing or being a party
to the killing.
(2) On a charge of murder, it shall be for the defence to prove that the
person charged is by virtue of this section not liable to be convicted of
murder.
(3) A person who but for this section would be liable, whether as principal
or as accessory, to be convicted of murder shall be liable instead to be
convicted of manslaughter.
(4) The fact that one party to a killing is by virtue of this section not
liable to be convicted of murder shall not affect the question whether the
killing amounted to murder in the case of any party to it.
3 Provocation
Where on a charge of murder there is evidence on which the jury can find that
the person charged was provoked (whether by things done or by things said or by
both together) to lose his self-control, the question whether the provocation
was enough to make a reasonable man do as he did shall be left to be determined
by the jury; and in determining that question the jury shall take into account
everything both done and said according to the effect which in their opinion, it
would have on a reasonable man.
4 Suicide pacts
1) It shall be manslaughter, and shall not be murder, for a person acting in pursuance
of a suicide pact between him and another to kill the other or be a party to the
other . . . being killed by a third person.
(2) Where it is shown that a person charged with the murder of another
killed the other or was a party to his . . . being killed, it shall be for the
defence to prove that the person charged was acting in pursuance of a suicide
pact between him and the other.
(3) For the purposes of this section “suicide pact” means a common
agreement between two or more persons having for its object the death of all of
them, whether or not each is to take his own life, but nothing done by a person
who enters into a suicide pact shall be treated as done by him in pursuance of
the pact unless it is done while he has the settled intention of dying in
pursuance of the pact.
Other sections repealed.
