Abstract
Lawyers concerned with battered wives who kill their abusers continue the struggle to widen the law to accommodate such killings within the partial defence of provocation. The Court of Appeal in R. v. Ahluwalia1 conceded that provocation was not negatived as a matter of law simply by delay, a concession to slow-burn anger. The subjective element in provocation could be satisfied even though some time passed between the provocation and the reaction thereby caused, provided at the time of the killing there was a loss of self-control that was sudden and temporary. This led to the comment, 'this legal development is there to be exploited by future battered women defendants.'2 With regard to the objective element, the judgment may have left it open to argue that being a battered woman is a relevant characteristic which could be attributed to the reasonable man.
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