George Galloway interviews Felicity Gerry on crimes of passion

From Daily Telegraph:

Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, said juries should be allowed to consider the fact a victim had been unfaithful as a possible provocation.

It restores a defence in so-called "crimes of passion", although Lord Judge insisted infidelity cannot be the sole reason for the murder and other "triggers" must be shown.

The last Labour Government changed the law surrounding murder defences to exclude sexual infidelity in so-called "loss of control" cases.

The ruling came as the Court of Appeal quashed the murder conviction of a man who killed his wife after she admitted she had slept with five men and then goaded him about it.

Jon-Jaques Clinton, 45, from Bracknell, Berkshire, was last year found guilty at Reading Crown Court of murdering his 33-year-old wife Dawn, who died from head injuries and asphyxia.

However, Lord Judge, sitting with two other senior judges, today ruled the judge had been wrong to discount Mrs Clinton's sexual infidelity and withdraw from the jury the "loss of control" defence, which could have reduced her husband's conviction to manslaughter.

Although Parliament laid down that sexual infidelity by itself will not be enough to trigger the new defence, Lord Judge said the "simple reality" was that it could not be "compartmentalised" and excluded when it was one of the factors potentially causing a loss of control.

He told the court: "To seek to compartmentalise sexual infidelity and exclude it when it is integral to the facts as a whole is not only much more difficult, but is unrealistic and carries with it the potential for injustice".

Ruling that jurors must be able to take account of victims' sexual infidelity, he added: "We have proceeded on the assumption that legislation is not enacted with the intent or purpose that the criminal justice system should operate so as to create injustice".

Clinton's legal team argue he "lost control" before killing his wife after she taunted him about her other sexual partners and told him he didn't have the guts to commit suicide.

Clinton says his wife "evinced pure hatred" of him before he killed her, going into "graphic details" about what she had done with five different men she said she had recently had sex with.

Allowing his appeal, and quashing his murder conviction, Lord Judge said Mrs Clinton's infidelity and other potentially provocative factors meant reasonable jurors could have concluded that the "loss of control" defence applied and the issue should have been left to them to decide.

Clinton will now be held in custody pending a retrial on the murder charge.

Appeals against murder convictions by two other wife killers - Steven Parker, 25, of Scunthorpe, Lincs, and Dewi Evans, 62, of Pontyberem, Camarthenshire - were dismissed by Lord Judge, who said jurors had been entitled to reject the "loss of control" defence in their cases.


George Galloway interviews lawyer Felicity Gerry on the crimes of passion.

Originally broadcasted on 20th January 2012.

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