Legal Case Summary
R v Gotts (Benjamin) [1992] 2 AC 412
Criminal law – Duress – Murder
Facts
Gotts, a sixteen-year-old boy, tried to kill his mother as he claimed that his father had threatened to shoot him unless he did so. Gotts stabbed his mother and caused serious injuries from which she survived. Gotts was charged with attempted murder. The trial judge ruled that the defence of duress was not available to him on a charge of attempted murder and instructed the jury to not consider this matter. Following this, Gotts changed his plea to guilty and appealed the conviction on the basis of the judge’s jury direction.
Issues
The key legal issue in this case was whether the defence of duress was available to Gotts on the basis that he was charged with attempted murder. The court would be required to analyse the common law and relevant pieces of legislation to understand in which circumstances the defence of duress applied.
Decision / Outcome
Gotts’ appeal was dismissed. The court recognised that there was no English authority which dealt directly with duress under a charge of attempted murder. However, the court followed R v Howe & Bannister (1987) which maintained that the defence of duress would not be available. This was based on the fact that that the law regarded the sanctity of life and felt its protection was of paramount importance. On this basis, it would be difficult to reconcile attempted murder (where the accused has an intention to kill), with murder where a punishable mens rea would suffice if the individual had the intent to cause serious injury.
Updated 20 March 2026
This case summary is legally accurate. R v Gotts [1992] 2 AC 412 remains good law. The House of Lords’ ruling that duress is unavailable as a defence to a charge of attempted murder has not been overturned by subsequent case law or statute. The decision continues to be applied consistently with R v Howe [1987] AC 417, which excluded duress from murder, with Gotts extending that exclusion to attempted murder on the basis that the defendant in attempted murder must have an intent to kill.
One point worth noting for readers: the article states that in murder a ‘punishable mens rea would suffice if the individual had the intent to cause serious injury.’ This reflects the pre-Jogee understanding but is in any event accurate as a description of the mens rea for murder itself (an intention to kill or cause grievous bodily harm: R v Vickers [1957] 2 QB 664, confirmed in R v Cunningham [1982] AC 566). This does not affect the correctness of the duress point. The Law Commission has on previous occasions recommended that duress be available as a defence to all offences including murder (see Law Com No 218, 1993, and Law Com No 304, 2006), but Parliament has not enacted any such reform, and the law as stated in the article remains unchanged.
