1. THE SPECIFIC INTENT/BASIC INTENT DICHOTOMY
DPP v Majewski [1977] AC 142.
The defendant had been convicted of various counts alleging actual bodily harm, and assaults upon police officers. The offences had occurred after the defendant had consumed large quantities of alcohol and drugs. The trial judge had directed the jury that self-induced intoxication was not available as a defence to these basic intent crimes. The defendant was convicted and appealed unsuccessfully to the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords.
Lord Elwyn-Jones LC referred to the case of Beard in which Lord Birkenhead LC concluded that the cases he had considered establish that drunkenness can be a defence where the accused was at the time of the offence so drunk as to be incapable of forming the specific intent necessary for such crimes. Lord Elwyn-Jones LC then said that before and since Beard’s case, judges had taken the view that self-induced intoxication, however gross and even if it produced a condition akin to automatism, cannot excuse crimes of basic intent. With crimes of basic intent, as his Lordship explained, the “fault” element is supplied by the defendant’s recklessness in becoming intoxicated, this recklessness being substituted for the mens rea that the prosecution would otherwise have to prove.
2. INTOXICATION BY DRUGS
R v Lipman [1970] 1 QB 152.
The defendant, having voluntarily consumed LSD, had the illusion of descending to the centre of the earth and being attacked by snakes. In his attempt to fight off these reptiles he struck the victim (also a drug addict on an LSD “trip”) two blows on the head causing injuries to her brain and crammed some eight inches of bedsheet into her mouth causing her to die of asphyxia. He claimed to have had no knowledge of what he was doing and no intention to harm her. His defence of intoxication was rejected at his trial and he was convicted of unlawful act manslaughter. His appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed. Widgery LJ said:
“For the purposes of criminal responsibility we see no reason to distinguish between the effect of drugs voluntarily taken and drunkenness voluntarily induced.”
5. SOPORIFIC EFFECT
R v Hardie [1985] 1 WLR 64.
The defendant had voluntarily consumed up to seven old valium tablets (a non-controlled drug having a sedative effect) for the purpose of calming his nerves. Whilst under the influence of the drug he had started a fire in the flat in which he had been living, but claimed to have been unable to remember anything after taking the tablets. The defendant was convicted of causing criminal damage being reckless as to whether life would be endangered, following the trial judge’s direction to the jury that self-induced intoxication was not available by way of defence to a basic intent crime. The defendant appealed.
The conviction was quashed on appeal on the grounds that he could not be expected to anticipate that tranquillisers would have that effect upon him. The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge should have distinguished valium, a sedative, from other types of drugs, such as alcohol, which were widely known to have socially unacceptable side effects. Whilst the voluntary consumption ofdangerous drugs might be conclusive proof of recklessness, no such presumption was justified in the case of non-dangerous drugs. The jury should have been directed to consider whether the defendant had been reckless in consuming the valium, in the sense that he had been aware of the risks associated with its consumption, although not necessarily aware of the risk that he would actually commit aggravated criminal damage.
6. “DUTCH COURAGE” INTOXICATION
A-G for N. Ireland v Gallagher [1963] AC 349.
The defendant decided to kill his wife. He bought a knife and a bottle of whisky which he drank to give himself “Dutch Courage”.
Then he killed her with the knife. He subsequently claimed that he was so drunk that he did not know what he was doing, or possibly even that the drink had brought on a latent psychopathic state so that he was insane at the time of the killing. The House of Lords held that intoxication could not be a defence in either case as the intent had been clearly formed, albeit before the killing took place. Lord Denning stated:
“If a man, whilst sane and sober, forms an intention to kill and makes preparation for it, knowing it is a wrong thing to do, and then gets himself drunk so as to give himself Dutch courage to do the killing, and whilst drunk carries out his intention, he cannot rely on his self-induced drunkenness as a defence to a charge of murder, not even as reducing it to manslaughter. He cannot say that he got himself into such a stupid state that he was incapable of an intent to kill. So also when he is a psychopath, he cannot by drinking rely on his self-induced defect of reason as a defence of insanity. The wickedness of his mind before he got drunk is enough to condemn him, coupled with the act which he intended to do and did do.”
7. INVOLUNTARY INTOXICATION
R v Allen [1988] Crim LR 698.
The defendant had drunk wine not knowing that it was extremely strong home-made wine. He then committed sexual offences, but claimed that he was so drunk that he did not know what he was doing. The Court of Appeal held that this did not amount to involuntary intoxication. He was thus treated as if he were voluntarily intoxicated.
Updated 19 March 2026
This article accurately summarises the leading cases on intoxication in English criminal law and the legal principles they established remain good law. DPP v Majewski [1977] AC 142 continues to be the foundational authority on the specific/basic intent distinction, and the principle that self-induced intoxication cannot excuse basic intent crimes remains settled. R v Lipman, R v Hardie, A-G for Northern Ireland v Gallagher, and R v Allen have not been overruled and are still regularly cited.
Readers should be aware of one significant development not covered by this article: the Law Commission has on multiple occasions examined and proposed reform of the intoxication rules, most recently in its 2009 Report Intoxication and Criminal Liability (Law Com No 314), which recommended statutory reform. However, those recommendations have not been implemented and the common law position described in this article therefore remains in force.
The article omits some cases that students may encounter, including R v Heard [2007] EWCA Crim 125, in which the Court of Appeal confirmed that sexual assault under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 is a basic intent offence and self-induced intoxication is no defence. This does not undermine anything stated in the article but is a material development worth noting. The article’s coverage should therefore be treated as an introduction rather than an exhaustive account of the law.
