Report (2nd Day) (Continued)

Part of Coroners and Justice Bill – in the House of Lords at 8:45 pm on 26 October 2009.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Lord Bach Lord Bach Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Justice, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice 8:45, 26 October 2009

My Lords, Amendment 62 would remove the subsection which provides that, when determining whether a loss of self-control had a qualifying trigger, the fact that a thing said or done constituted sexual infidelity is to be disregarded. In spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Neill, may think, we understand and accept that passions may run very high when a person feels a strong sense of having been wronged by another. We have taken pains to stress this whenever these provisions have been debated, both in the other place and here. A person may, of course, be very deeply wounded by the behaviour of another, particularly if the two are partners and one of them has been unfaithful to the other. However, what we cannot concede is the suggestion that, at the beginning of the 21st century, it is acceptable to deal with such situations by resorting to violence—and not just violence. We are talking here about the deliberate use of such force that death results.

It has often been thought, because of the history of the partial defence of provocation, that men who kill their unfaithful wives can make use of that defence to evade a murder conviction. To put it bluntly, we do not believe that it is right or fair, or that it should be a possibility. The development of case law and the outcomes of more recent cases may suggest that this problem has been to some extent addressed; I concede that. Indeed, pleas of provocation on the basis of sexual infidelity normally now fail. However, the current law still allows the defence to be raised and, obviously, where a defence can be raised it will succeed from time to time. Frankly, we want to draw a line under all this. Our provision spells out that it is unacceptable for a defendant who has killed an unfaithful partner to rely on that unfaithfulness to try to escape a murder conviction.

This debate is all about a partial defence to murder and, specifically, about when we should deem it appropriate to reduce liability for murder to that for the less serious offence of manslaughter. Our conviction is this: killing in response to sexual infidelity is, well into the 21st century, as I say, not a defensible basis for such a reduction to be made. Indeed, I challenge those who oppose this provision and have spoken against it to explain why they consider that, when one person kills another, the fact that the deceased had been unfaithful to their killer should ever be enough to reduce a murder conviction to manslaughter. The Government believe that what we propose here is appropriate and proper for the times that we live in, so I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment. If he will not, I will advise the House to vote against it.