Abstract
The fourth Forensic Psychiatry Specialist Section Conference of the College was held at Stratford-upon-Avon on 1 and 2 February 1985. The theme was the Homicide Act and the wider context of insanity legislation in theory and in practice. Not difficult to predict that so many differing ‘expert’ opinions would be expressed—a mirror of the ‘ritual dance’ of experts in court perhaps—but not so predictable that the papers should be so clearly expressed and mostly rigorous as they were, and that some degree of consensus should emerge. I shall attempt to summarize parts of the contributions and some of the suggestions made for change.
Highlights
The fourth Forensic Psychiatry Specialist Section Conference of the College was held at Stratford-upon-Avon on 1 and 2
Dr Higgins discussed the divergence of Scottish law from English law from the seventeenth century onwards and the early acceptance in Scotland, enshrined from the time of R. v Dingwell (1867), of the concept of 'partial insanity' and thereby of partial respon sibility
In England, by contrast, the concept of degree of responsibility remained effectively dormant until the Cowers Commission and the Hcald Committee's recommendations led to the passing of the Homicide Act (1957) and the creation of the defence of diminished responsibility
Summary
The fourth Forensic Psychiatry Specialist Section Conference of the College was held at Stratford-upon-Avon on 1 and 2. Dell's (Institute of Psychiatry) views were drawn largely from work contained in her recently published Maudsley Monograph.[2] Since Section 2 of the 1957 Act existed only to provide a means of escape for all concerned from the mandatory penalty for murder ( life imprison ment but previously death, prior to the suspension of the death penalty in 1965), if we could get rid of that we could be rid of the diminished responsibility defence and all its diffi culties too.
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