Coroners and Justice Bill

Part of the debate – in a Public Bill Committee at 1:40 pm on 5 February 2009.

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Peter Lodder: There are some cases in which, frankly, you will run any defence you think you can possibly run, because there is a rather overwhelming case against you. But, if you are to run diminished responsibility, there has to be some medical basis; you cannot conjure it out of the air. So, if it is available to you and a real basis, of course it would be run as a defence. Provocation may run in tandem, but, as I have said, the difficulty with provocation is that the judge can raise it at the trial’s conclusion even though one of the parties has not raised it as an issue in the case.