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- Point in Time (31/10/2009)
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Version Superseded: 04/10/2010
Point in time view as at 31/10/2009.
There are currently no known outstanding effects for the Homicide Act 1957.
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(1)Where a person kills another in the course or furtherance of some other offence, the killing shall not amount to murder unless done with the same malice aforethought (express or implied) as is required for a killing to amount to murder when not done in the course or furtherance of another offence.
(2)For the purposes of the foregoing subsection, a killing done in the course or for the purpose of resisting an officer of justice, or of resisting or avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest, or of effecting or assisting an escape or rescue from legal custody, shall be treated as a killing in the course or furtherance of an offence.
(1)Where a person kills or is a party to the killing of another, he shall not be convicted of murder if he was suffering from such abnormality of mind (whether arising from a condition of arrested or retarded development of mind or any inherent causes or induced by disease or injury) as substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts and omissions in doing or being a party to the killing.
(2)On a charge of murder, it shall be for the defence to prove that the person charged is by virtue of this section not liable to be convicted of murder.
(3)A person who but for this section would be liable, whether as principal or as accessory, to be convicted of murder shall be liable instead to be convicted of manslaughter.
(4)The fact that one party to a killing is by virtue of this section not liable to be convicted of murder shall not affect the question whether the killing amounted to murder in the case of any other party to it.
Where on a charge of murder there is evidence on which the jury can find that the person charged was provoked (whether by things done or by things said or by both together) to lose his self-control, the question whether the provocation was enough to make a reasonable man do as he did shall be left to be determined by the jury; and in determining that question the jury shall take into account everything both done and said according to the effect which, in their opinion, it would have on a reasonable man.
(1)It shall be manslaughter, and shall not be murder, for a person acting in pursuance of a suicide pact between him and another to kill the other or be a party to the other . . . F1 being killed by a third person.
(2)Where it is shown that a person charged with the murder of another killed the other or was a party to his . . . F1 being killed, it shall be for the defence to prove that the person charged was acting in pursuance of a suicide pact between him and the other.
(3)For the purposes of this section “suicide pact” means a common agreement between two or more persons having for its object the death of all of them, whether or not each is to take his own life, but nothing done by a person who enters into a suicide pact shall be treated as done by him in pursuance of the pact unless it is done while he has the settled intention of dying in pursuance of the pact.
Textual Amendments
F1Words repealed by Suicide Act 1961 (c. 60), Sch. 2
Textual Amendments
Textual Amendments
(1)Part I . . . F4 of this Act shall not extend to Scotland.
(2). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F5
F6(3). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Textual Amendments
F4Words repealed by Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 (c. 71), Sch.
F5Ss. 5–12, 13(2) repealed by Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 (c. 71), Sch.
F6S. 13(3) repealed (28.3.2009 for specified purposes, 31.10.2009 in so far as not already in force) by Armed Forces Act 2006 (c. 52), s. 383(2), Sch. 17; S.I. 2009/812, art. 3(a)(b) (with transitional provisions in S.I. 2009/1059); S.I. 2009/1167, art. 4
Modifications etc. (not altering text)
C1Unreliable marginal note
Textual Amendments
F7S. 14 repealed by Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1973 (c. 39), Sch. 1 Pt. V
Textual Amendments
Textual Amendments
F9S. 16 repealed by Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1977 (c. 18), Sch. 1 Pt. IV
(1)This Act may be cited as the Homicide Act 1957.
(2). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F10
F11(3)This ActF11... shall not extend to Northern Ireland.
Textual Amendments
F10S. 17(2) repealed by Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1974 (c. 22), Sch. Pt. XI
F11Words in s. 17(3) repealed (28.3.2009 for specified purposes, 31.10.2009 in so far as not already in force) by Armed Forces Act 2006 (c. 52), s. 383(2), Sch. 17; S.I. 2009/812, art. 3(a)(b) (with transitional provisions in S.I. 2009/1059); S.I. 2009/1167, art. 4
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