DPP v Majewski [1976] 2 All ER 142

HOUSE OF LORDS

LORD ELWYN-JONES LC, LORD DIPLOCK, LORD SIMON OF GLAISDALE, LORD KILBRANDON, LORD SALMON, LORD EDMUND-DAVIES AND LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN
24, 25 NOVEMBER 1975, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21 JANUARY, 13 APRIL 1976

During the course of a disturbance at a public house the appellant attacked the landlord and two other persons, injuring all three of them. When the police arrived, he assaulted an officer, and later, at the police station where he had been taken, he struck two other officers. The appellant was indicted on four counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and three counts of assaulting a police constable in the execution of his duty. At his trial the appellant testified that during the 48 hours preceding the disturbance he had taken a considerable quantity of drugs and that, at the time when the assaults were committed, he was acting under a combination of drugs and alcohol to such an extent that he did not know what he was doing and had no recollection of the incidents that had occurred. The judge, however, directed the jury that ‘the fact that [the appellant] may have taken drink and drugs is irrelevant, provided that you are satisfied that the state which he was in [as] a result of those drink and drugs or a combination of both was self-induced’. The appellant was convicted on six of the seven counts. He appealed on the ground that, because of his condition at the time of the assaults, he was incapable of forming the intent necessary to constitute the offences charged and the direction of the judge to disregard evidence of the appellant’s intoxicated state in determining whether he had the necessary intent contravened s 8 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967.

Held – Unless the offence was one which required proof of a specific, or ulterior, intent, it was no defence to a criminal charge that, by reason of self-induced intoxication, the accused did not intend to do the act alleged to constitute the offence. Accordingly, since the offences of assault with which the appellant had been charged did not require proof of a specific or ulterior intent, the direction to the jury was correct. Section 8 of the 1967 Act was irrelevant, since that section dealt only with matters of evidence and the rule that a defendant could not excuse his conduct by relying on self-induced intoxication was a rule of substantive law. The appeal would therefore be dismissed (see p 146 c, p 149 a, p 150 f to p 151 a and f to p 152 c, p 153 e, p 155 a b and e, p 157 d to f, p 159 a to e, p 165 a and b and p 170 c to p 171 b, post).
Dictum of Lord Birkenhead LC in Director of Public Prosecutions v Beard [1920] All ER Rep at 30 explained.
Decision of the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, sub nom R v Majewski [1975] 3 All ER 296 affirmed.

13 April 1976. The following opinions were delivered.

LORD ELWYN-JONES LC. My Lords, Robert Stefan Majewski appeals against his conviction on 7 November 1973 at Chelmsford Crown Court on three counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and three counts of assault on a police constable in the execution of his duty. He was bound over to come up for judgment when called on. On 5 December 1973 he was placed on probation for three years. Later he committed a further offence for which he was given an additional sentence of six months’ imprisonment for the original offences.
   The appellant’s case was that when the assaults were committed he was acting under the influence of a combination of drugs (not medically prescribed) and alcohol, to such an extent that he did not know what he was doing and that he remembered nothing of the incidents that had occurred. After medical evidence had been called by the defence as to the effect of the drugs and drink the appellant had taken, the learned judge, in the absence of the jury, ruled that he would direct the jury in due course that on the charges of assault or assault occasioning actual bodily harm, the question whether he had taken drink or drugs was immaterial. The learned judge directed the jury that in relation to an offence not requiring a specific intent, the fact that a man has induced in himself a state in which he is under the influence of drink and drugs, is no defence. Since the counts for assault did not require proof of any specific intent, the fact that the accused might have taken drink or drugs was irrelevant, provided the jury was satisfied that the state which he was in as a result of drink and drugs or a combination of both was self-induced. He concluded ‘… on my direction in law you can ignore the subject of drink and drugs as being in any way a defence to any one or more of the counts in this indictment’. In dealing with assault, he directed that it meant some blow or kick, ‘not something which is purely accidental’.
   In view of the conclusion to which I have come that the appeal should be dismissed and of the questions of law which arise in the case, it is desirable that I should refer in some detail to the facts, which were largely undisputed. During the evening of 19 February 1973 the appellant and his friend, Leonard Stace, who had also taken drugs and drink, went to the Bull public house in Basildon. The appellant obtained a drink and sat down in the lounge bar at a table by the door. Stace became involved in a disturbance. Glasses were broken. The landlord asked Stace to leave and escorted him to the door. As he did so, Stace called to the appellant: ‘He’s putting me out.’ The appellant got up and prevented the landlord from getting Stace out and abused him. The landlord told them both to go. They refused. The appellant butted the landlord in the face and bruised it, and punched a customer. The customers in the bar and the landlord forced the two out through the bar doors. They re-entered by forcing the outer door, a glass panel of which was broken by Stace. The appellant punched the landlord and pulled a piece of broken glass from the frame and started swinging it at the landlord and a customer, cutting the landlord slightly on his arm. The appellant then burst through the inner door of the bar with such force that he fell on the floor. The landlord held him there until the police arrived. The appellant was violent and abusive and spat in the landlord’s face. When the police came, a fierce struggle took place to get him out. He shouted at the police: ‘You pigs, I’ll kill you all, you f … pigs, you bastards.’ Pc Barkway said the appellant looked at him and kicked him deliberately.
   Pc Bird was kicked on the shins. During the struggle to get the appellant into the police car he said to Pc Barrett: ‘You bastard, I’ll get you’, and then kicked him.
   The appellant was placed in the cells of Basildon police station. The next morning Inspector Dickinson heard banging and saw the appellant in his cell trying to remove a metal flap under the bed platform. The inspector asked him what he was doing. According to the inspector he said: ‘Come in here and I will stripe you with this. I’ll break your neck.’ The inspector and other officers entered the cell. Before he was restrained, he struck the inspector with the handcuffs on his wrists. Dr Mitchell arrived and gave him an injection.
   Cross-examined as to the appellant’s condition that evening the publican said he seemed to have gone berserk, his eyes were a bit glazed and protruding. A customer said he was ‘glarey-eyed’, and went ‘berserk’ when the publican asked Stace to leave. He was screaming and shouting. A policeman said he was in a fearful temper.
   The appellant gave evidence and said that on Saturday, 17 February 1973, he bought, not on prescription, about 440 Dexadrine tablets (‘speeds’) and early on Sunday morning consumed about half of them. That gave him plenty of energy until he ‘started coming down’. He did not sleep throughout Sunday. On Monday evening at about 6·00 pm he acquired a bottle full of sodium nembutal tablets which he said were tranquillisers—‘downers’, ‘barbs’—and took about eight of them at about 6·30 pm. He and his friends then went to the Bull. He said he could remember nothing of what took place there save for a flash of recollection of Stace kicking a window. All he recollected of the police cell was asking the police to remove his handcuffs and then being injected.
   In cross-examination he admitted he had been taking amphetamines and barbiturates, not on prescription, for two years, in large quantities. On occasions he drank barley wine or Scotch. He had sometimes ‘gone paranoid’. This was the first time he had ‘completely blanked out’.
   Dr Bird, called for the defence, said that the appellant had been treated for drug addiction since November 1971. There was no history in his case of psychiatric disorder or diagnosable mental illness, but the appellant had a personality disorder. Dr Bird said that barbiturates and alcohol are known to potentiate each other and to produce rapid intoxication and affect a person’s awareness of what was going on. In the last analysis one could be rendered unconscious and a condition known as pathological intoxication can occur, but it is uncommon and there are usually well-marked episodes. It would be possible, but unlikely, to achieve a state of automatism as a result of intoxication with barbiturates and alcohol or amphetamines and alcohol. Aggressive behaviour is greater. After a concentration of alcohol and barbiturates it was not uncommon for ‘an amnesic patch’ to ensue.
   In cross-examination, Dr Bird said he had never in practice come across a case of ‘pathological intoxication’ and it is an unusual condition. It is quite possible that a person under the influence of barbiturates, amphetamines or alcohol or all three in combination may be able to form certain intentions and execute them, punching and kicking people, and yet afterwards be unable to remember anything about it. During such ‘disinhibited behaviour’ he may do things which he would not do if he was not under the influence of the various sorts of drink and drugs about which evidence has been given.
   In a statement Dr Mitchell expressed the opinion that at the police station on the morning of 20 February, the appellant was completely out of control mentally and physically, which might have been due to ‘withdrawal symptoms’.
   The Court of Appeal ([1975] 3 All ER 296, [1975] 3 WLR 401) dismissed the appeal against conviction but granted leave to appeal to your Lordships’ House certifying that the following point of law of general public importance was involved:

‘Whether a defendant may properly be convicted of assault notwithstanding that, by reason of his self-induced intoxication, he did not intend to do the act alleged to constitute the assault.’

The appeal raises issues of considerable public importance. In giving the judgment of the Court of Appeal Lawton LJ ([1975] 3 All ER at 299, [1975] 3 WLR at 404) rightly observed:

‘The facts are commonplace—indeed so commonplace that their very nature reveals how serious from a social and public standpoint the consequences would be if men could behave as the appellant did and then claim that they were not guilty of any offence.’

Self-induced alcoholic intoxication has been a factor in crimes of violence, like assault, throughout the history of crime in this country. But voluntary drug taking with the potential and actual dangers to others it may cause has added a new dimension to the old problem with which the courts have had to deal in their endeavour to maintain order and to keep public and private violence under control. To achieve this is the prime purpose of the criminal law. I have said ‘the courts’, for most of the relevant law has been made by the judges. A good deal of the argument in the hearing of this appeal turned on that judicial history, for the crux of the case for the Crown was that, illogical as the outcome may be said to be, the judges have evolved for the purpose of protecting the community a substantive rule of law that, in crimes of basic intent as distinct from crimes of specific intent, self-induced intoxication provides no defence and is irrelevant to offences of basic intent, such as assault.
The case of counsel for the appellant was that there was no such substantive rule of law and that if there was, it did violence to logic and ethics and to fundamental principles of the criminal law which had been evolved to determine when and where criminal responsibility should arise. His main propositions were as follows: (i) No man is guilty of a crime (save in relation to offences of strict liability) unless he has a guilty mind. (ii) A man who, though not insane, commits what would in ordinary circumstances be a crime when he is in such a mental state (whether it is called ‘automatism’ or ‘pathological intoxication’ or anything else) that he does not know what he is doing, lacks a guilty mind and is not criminally culpable for his actions. (iii) This is so whether the charge involves a specific (or ‘ulterior’) intent or one involving only a general (or ‘basic’) intent. (iv) The same principle applies whether the automatism was the result of causes beyond the control of the accused or was self-induced by the voluntary taking of drugs or drink. (v) Assaults being crimes involving a guilty mind, a man who in a state of automatism unlawfully assaults another must be regarded as free from blame and be entitled to acquittal. (vi) It is logically and ethically indefensible to convict such a man of assault; it also contravenes s 8 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967. (vii) There was accordingly a fatal misdirection.
A great deal of the argument in the hearing of the appeal turned on the application to the established facts of what Cave J in R v Tolson ((1889) 23 QBD 168 at 181, [1886–90] All ER Rep 26 at 34) called ‘the somewhat uncouth maxim “actus non facit reum, nisi mens sit rea.”’ The judgment of Stephen J in that case has long been accepted as authoritative. He said (23 QBD at 185, [1886–90] All ER Rep at 36):

‘Though this phrase is in common use, I think it most unfortunate, and not only likely to mislead, but actually misleading, on the following grounds. It naturally suggests that, apart from all particular definitions of crimes, such a thing exists as a “mens rea”, or “guilty mind”, which is always expressly or by implication involved in every definition. This is obviously not the case, for the mental elements of different crimes differ widely. “Mens rea” means in the case of murder, malice aforethought; in the case of theft, an intention to steal; in the case of rape, an intention to have forcible connection with a woman without her consent; and in the case of receiving stolen goods, knowledge that the goods were stolen. In some cases it denotes mere inattention. For instance, in the case of manslaughter by negligence it may mean forgetting to notice a signal. It appears confusing to call so many dissimilar states of mind by one name.’

Stephen J ((1889) 23 QBD at 187, [1886–90] All ER Rep at 37) concluded:

‘The principle involved appears to me, when fully considered, to amount to no more than this. The full definition of every crime contains expressly or by implication a proposition as to a state of mind. Therefore, if the mental element of any conduct alleged to be a crime is proved to have been absent in any given case, the crime so defined is not committed; or, again, if a crime is fully defined, nothing amounts to that crime which does not satisfy that definition.’

What then is the mental element required in our law to be established in assault? This question has been most helpfully answered in the speech of Lord Simon of Glaisdale in Director of Public Prosecutions v Morgan ([1975] 2 All ER 347 at 363, 364, [1975] 2 WLR 913 at 939):

‘By “crimes of basic intent” I mean those crimes whose definition expresses (or, more often, implies) a mens rea which does not go beyond the actus reus. The actus reus generally consists of an act and some consequence. The consequence may be very closely connected with the act or more remotely connected with it; but with a crime of basic intent the mens rea does not extend beyond the act and its consequence, however remote, as defined in the actus reus. I take assault as an example of a crime of basic intent where the consequence is very closely connected with the act. The actus reus of assault is an act which causes another person to apprehend immediate and unlawful violence. The mens rea corresponds exactly. The prosecution must prove that the accused foresaw that his act would probably cause another person to have apprehension of immediate and unlawful violence or would possibly have that consequence, such being the purpose of the act, or that he was reckless whether or not his act caused such apprehension. This foresight (the term of art is “intention”) or recklessness is the mens rea in assault. For an example of a crime of basic intent where the consequence of the act involved in the actus reus as defined in the crime is less immediate, I take the crime of unlawful wounding. The act is, say, the squeezing of a trigger. A number of consequences (mechanical, chemical, ballistic and physiological) intervene before the final consequence involved in the defined actus reus—namely, the wounding of another person in circumstances unjustified by law. But again here the mens rea corresponds closely to the actus reus. The prosecution must prove that the accused foresaw that some physical harm would ensue to another person in circumstances unjustified by law as a probable (or possible and desired) consequence of his act, or that he was reckless whether or not such consequence ensued.’

How does the factor of self-induced intoxication fit into that analysis? If a man consciously and deliberately takes alcohol and drugs not on medical prescription, but in order to escape from reality, to go ‘on a trip’, to become hallucinated, whatever the description may be, and thereby disables himself from taking the care he might otherwise take and as a result by his subsequent actions causes injury to another—does our criminal law enable him to say that because he did not know what he was doing he lacked both intention and recklessness and accordingly is entitled to an acquittal?
Originally the common law would not and did not recognise self-induced intoxication as an excuse. Lawton LJ ([1975] 3 All ER 296 at 305, 306, [1975] 3 WLR 401 at 411) spoke of the ‘merciful relaxation’ to that rule which was introduced by the judges during the 19th century, and he added:

‘Although there was much reforming zeal and activity in the 19th century Parliament never once considered whether self-induced intoxication should be a defence generally to a criminal charge. It would have been a strange result if the merciful relaxation of a strict rule of law had ended, without any Parliamentary intervention, by whittling it away to such an extent that the more drunk a man became, provided he stopped short of making himself insane, the better chance he had of an acquittal … The common law rule still applied but there were exceptions to it which Lord Birkenhead LC^a tried to define by reference to specific intent.’

Director of Public Prosecutions v Beard [1920] AC 479, [1920] All ER Rep 21

There are, however, decisions of eminent judges in a number of Commonwealth cases in Australia and New Zealand (but generally not in Canada nor in the United States), as well as impressive academic comment in this country, to which we have been referred, supporting the view that it is illogical and inconsistent with legal principle to treat a person who of his own choice and volition has taken drugs and drink, even though he thereby creates a state in which he is not conscious of what he is doing, any differently from a person suffering from the various medical conditions like epilepsy or diabetic coma and who is regarded by the law as free from fault. However, our courts have for a very long time regarded in quite another light the state of self-induced intoxication. The authority which for the last half century has been relied on in this context has been the speech of Lord Birkenhead LC in Director of Public Prosecutions v Beard ([1920] AC at 494, [1920] All ER Rep at 25):

‘Under the law of England as it prevailed until early in the nineteenth century voluntary drunkenness was never an excuse for criminal misconduct; and indeed the classic authorities broadly assert that voluntary drunkenness must be considered rather an aggravation than a defence. This view was in terms based upon the principle that a man who by his own voluntary act debauches and destroys his will power shall be no better situated in regard to criminal acts than a sober man.’

Lord Birkenhead LC made an historical survey of the way the common law from the 16th century on dealt with the effect of self-induced intoxication on criminal responsibility. This indicates how, from 1819 on, the judges began to mitigate the severity of the attitude of the common law in such cases as murder and serious violent crime when the penalties of death or transportation applied or where there was likely to be sympathy for the accused, as in attempted suicide. Lord Birkenhead LC ([1920] AC at 499, 500, [1920] All ER Rep at 27, 28) concluded that (except in cases where insanity was pleaded) the decisions he cited—

‘establish that where a specific intent is an essential element in the offence, evidence of a state of drunkenness rendering the accused incapable of forming such an intent should be taken into consideration in order to determine whether he had in fact formed the intent necessary to constitute the particular crime. If he was so drunk that he was incapable of forming the intent required he could not be convicted of a crime which was committed only if the intent was proved. … In a charge of murder based upon intention to kill or to do grievous bodily harm, if the jury are satisfied that the accused was, by reason of his drunken condition, incapable of forming the intent to kill or to do grievous bodily harm … he cannot be convicted of murder. But nevertheless unlawful homicide has been committed by the accused, and consequently he is guilty of unlawful homicide without malice aforethought, and that is manslaughter: per Stephen J. in Doherty’s Case [(1887) 16 Cox CC 306 at 307] [He concluded the passage:] the law is plain beyond all question that in cases falling short of insanity a condition of drunkenness at the time of committing an offence causing death can only, when it is available at all, have the effect of reducing the crime from murder to manslaughter.’

From this it seemed clear—and this is the interpretation which the judges have placed on the decision during the ensuing half-century—that it is only in the limited class of cases requiring proof of specific intent that drunkenness can exculpate. Otherwise in no case can it exempt completely from criminal liability.
Unhappily what Lord Birkenhead LC ([1920] AC at 500, [1920] All ER Rep at 28) described as ‘plain beyond question’ becomes less plain in the later passage in his speech ([1920] AC at 504, [1920] All ER Rep at 30) on which counsel for the appellant not unnaturally placed great emphasis. It reads:

‘I do not think that the proposition of law deduced from these earlier cases is an exceptional rule applicable only to cases in which it is necessary to prove a specific intent in order to constitute the graver crime—e.g., wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm or with intent to kill. It is true that in such cases the specific intent must be proved to constitute the particular crime, but this is, on ultimate analysis, only in accordance with the ordinary law applicable to crime, for, speaking generally (and apart from certain special offences), a person cannot be convicted of a crime unless the mens was rea. Drunkenness, rendering a person incapable of the intent, would be an answer, as it is for example in a charge of attempted suicide.’

Why then would it not be an answer in a charge of manslaughter, contrary to the earlier pronouncement ([1920] AC at 499, [1920] All ER Rep at 27)? In my view these passages are not easy to reconcile, but I do not dissent from the reconciliation suggested by my noble and learned friend Lord Russell of Killowen. Commenting on the passage ([1920] AC at 504, [1920] All ER Rep at 30) in 1920 shortly after it was delivered, however, Stroud^b wrote:

‘The whole of these observations … suggest an extension of the defence of drunkenness far beyond the limits which have hitherto been assigned to it. The suggestion, put shortly, is that drunkenness may be available as a defence, upon any criminal charge, whenever it can be shown to have affected mens rea. Not only is there no authority for the suggestion; there is abundant authority, both ancient and modern, to the contrary.’

It has to be said that it is on the latter footing that the judges have applied the law before and since Beard’s case and have taken the view that self-induced intoxication, however gross and even if it has produced a condition akin to automatism, cannot excuse crimes of basic intent such as the charges of assault which have given rise to the present appeal.
In Attorney General for Northern Ireland v Gallagher ([1961] 3 All ER 299 at 313, [1963] AC 349 at 380) Lord Denning spoke of—

‘the general principle of English law that, subject to very limited exceptions, drunkenness is no defence to a criminal charge nor is a defect of reason produced by drunkenness. This principle was stated by SIR MATTHEW HALE in his PLEAS OF THE CROWN, Vol. 1, p. 32, in words which I would repeat here: “This vice [drunkenness] doth deprive men of the use of reason, and puts many men into a perfect, but temporary phrenzy … by the laws of England such a person shall have no privilege by this voluntary contracted madness, but shall have the same judgment as if he were in his right senses.”’

Gallagher’s case was followed by Bratty v Attorney General for Northern Ireland. Lord Denning ([1961] 3 All ER at 532, 533, [1963] AC at 409, 410) said:

‘No act is punishable if it is done involuntarily: and an involuntary act in this context—some people nowadays prefer to speak of it as “automatism”—means an act which is done by the muscles without any control by the mind such as a spasm, a reflex action or a convulsion; or an act done by a person who is not conscious of what he is doing such as an act done whilst suffering from concussion or whilst sleepwalking. The point was well put by STEPHEN, J., in 1889: ” … can anyone doubt that a man who, though he might be perfectly sane, committed what would otherwise be a crime in a state of somnambulism, would be entitled to be acquitted? And why is this? Simply because he would not know what he was doing”; see R. v. Tolson [(1889) 23 QBD 168 at 187, [1886–90] All ER Rep 26 at 37]. The term “involuntary act” is, however, capable of wider connotations: and to prevent confusion it is to be observed that in the criminal law an act is not to be regarded as an involuntary act simply because the doer does not remember it … Nor is an act to be regarded as an involuntary act simply because it is unintentional or its consequences are unforeseen … Another thing to be observed is that it is not every involuntary act which leads to a complete acquittal. Take first an involuntary act which proceeds from a state of drunkenness. If the drunken man is so drunk that he does not know what he is doing, he has a defence to any charge, such as murder or wounding with intent, in which a specific intent is essential, but he is still liable to be convicted of manslaughter or unlawful wounding for which no specific intent is necessary, see Beard’s case.’

The seal of approval is clearly set on the passage of the Beard ([1920] AC at 499, [1920] All ER Rep at 27) decision. In no case has the general principle of English law as described by Lord Denning in Gallagher’s case and exposed again in Bratty’s case been overruled in this House and the question now to be determined is whether it should be.
I do not for my part regard that general principle as either unethical or contrary to the principles of natural justice. If a man of his own volition takes a substance which causes him to cast off the restraints of reason and conscience, no wrong is done to him by holding him answerable criminally for any injury he may do while in that condition. His course of conduct in reducing himself by drugs and drink to that condition in my view supplies the evidence of mens rea, of guilty mind certainly sufficient for crimes of basic intent. It is a reckless course of conduct and recklessness is enough to constitute the necessary mens rea in assault cases: see R v Venna ([1975] 3 All ER 788 at 793, [1975] 3 WLR 737 at 743) per James LJ. The drunkenness is itself an intrinsic, an integral part of the crime, the other part being the evidence of the unlawful use of force against the victim. Together they add up to criminal recklessness. On this I adopt the conclusion of Stroud^c that:

‘It would be contrary to all principle and authority to suppose that drunkenness [and what is true of drunkenness is equally true of intoxication by drugs] can be a defence for crime in general on the ground that “a person cannot be convicted of a crime unless the mens was rea“. By allowing himself to get drunk and thereby putting himself in such a condition as to be no longer amenable to the law’s commands, a man shows such regardlessness as amounts to mens rea for the purpose of all ordinary crimes.’

This approach is in line with the American Model Code^d:

‘When recklessness establishes an element of the offence, if the actor, due to self-induced intoxication, is unaware of a risk of which he would have been aware had he been sober, such unawareness is immaterial.’

Acceptance generally of intoxication as a defence (as distinct from the exceptional cases where some additional mental element above that of ordinary mens rea has to be proved) would in my view undermine the criminal law and I do not think that it is enough to say, as did counsel for the appellant, that we can rely on the good sense of the jury or of magistrates to ensure that the guilty are convicted. It may well be that Parliament will at some future time consider, as I think it should, the recommendation in the Butler Committee Report on Mentally Abnormal Offenders^e that a new offence of ‘dangerous intoxication’ should be created. But in the meantime it would be irresponsible to abandon the common law rule, as ‘mercifully relaxed’, which the courts have followed for a century and a half.

   How the court of trial should deal with an offender in the circumstances we are considering is not a problem which arises on this appeal. It would no doubt take full account of the relevant medical evidence and of all mitigating factors and give careful consideration to the various alternatives, custodial and non-custodial, punitive and curative, now available to the courts. There is no minimum punishment for the class of assaults with which this appeal is concerned and the court’s discretion as to how to deal with the offender is wide.
   The final question that arises is whether s 8 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 has had the result of abrogating or qualifying the common law rule. That section emanated from the consideration the Law Commission gave to the decision of the House in Director of Public Prosecutions v Smith. Its purpose and effect was to alter the law of evidence about the presumption of intention to produce the reasonable and probable consequences of one’s acts. It was not intended to change the common law rule. In referring to ‘all the evidence’ it meant all the relevant evidence. But if there is a substantive rule of law that in crimes of basic intent, the factor of intoxication is irrelevant (and such I hold to be the substantive law), evidence with regard to it is quite irrelevant. Section 8 does not abrogate the substantive rule and it cannot properly be said that the continued application of that rule contravenes the section. For these reasons, my conclusion is that the certified question should be answered Yes, that there was no misdirection in this case and that the appeal should be dismissed.
   My noble and learned friends and I think it may be helpful if we give the following indication of the general lines on which in our view the jury should be directed as to the effect on the criminal responsibility of the accused of drink or drugs or both, whenever death or physical injury to another person results from something done by the accused for which there is no legal justification and the offence with which the accused is charged is manslaughter or assault at common law or the statutory offence of unlawful wounding under s 20, or of assault occasioning actual bodily harm under s 47 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861.
   In the case of these offences it is no excuse in law that, because of drink or drugs which the accused himself had taken knowingly and willingly, he had deprived himself of the ability to exercise self-control, to realise the possible consequences of what he was doing or even to be conscious that he was doing it. As in the instant case, the jury may be properly instructed that they ‘can ignore the subject of drink or drugs as being in any way a defence to’ charges of this character.

LORD DIPLOCK. My Lords, I have had the advantage of reading the speech of my noble and learned friend, Lord Elwyn-Jones LC. I agree with it and with his conclusions. I also agree with my noble and learned friend, Lord Russell of Killowen, in his analysis of the speech of Lord Birkenhead LC in Director of Public Prosecutions v Beard. I would dismiss this appeal.

LORD SIMON OF GLAISDALE. My Lords, I have had the advantage of reading the speech prepared by my noble and learned friend, Lord Elwyn-Jones LC. I agree with it, and I would therefore dismiss the appeal. What follows is by way of marginal comment. ...

LORD KILBRANDON. My Lords, I have had the advantage of reading the speech of my noble and learned friend, Lord Elwyn-Jones LC. I entirely agree with it and with his conclusions. ... I would accordingly dismiss this appeal.

LORD SALMON. ... My Lords ... I would dismiss the appeal.

LORD EDMUND-DAVIES. ... I concur in holding that Yes is the proper answer to the certified question and that, there having been no misdirection, the appeal should be dismissed.

LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN. My Lords, your Lordships have dealt with so fully with the considerations to which this appeal has given rise that I will be brief. I entirely agree that the answer to the question posed is in the affirmative. ... I too would dismiss this appeal.

-- Appeal Dismissed.

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