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Coroners and Justice Bill

I hesitated in standing in case I was a little too quick again. Of course I understand what has been said by the noble Lords, Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Kingsland. The Government understand that these issues change over time, and hear very clearly what the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, said about the approach that people have historically taken to infidelity, and how that may well have moved on. We understand that there are many situations where passions run high and where people feel a strong sense of having been wronged, especially within close personal relationships. We accept that these situations may have a devastating impact on the individuals involved. In this day and age, whatever the views may be about that, we want to put beyond peradventure that this cannot be the basis upon which one should seek to take another’s life. We believe that these are circumstances that people need to be able to deal with without resorting to violence. This is particularly the case where sexual infidelity is concerned. The history of the partial defence of provocation has led to a commonly held belief that it is a defence which can be abused by men who kill their wives out of sexual jealousy and revenge over infidelity. Indeed, it may be the other way around, when women kill their husbands because they have betrayed them with another woman—particularly if that other woman had at some stage been befriended by them. This erodes the confidence of the public in the fairness of the criminal justice system. Even accepting that a great deal has been done in recent years to address this problem, and that pleas of provocation on the basis of sexual infidelity generally do not succeed, it is still true that, under the current law, the defence can be raised and could technically succeed. We want to make it clear in the Bill that this can no longer be the case, and that it is unacceptable for a defendant who has killed an unfaithful partner to seek to blame the victim for what occurred. It is important to correct a misconception here. By doing this, we are not saying that people are not entitled to feel upset and angry at a partner’s unfaithfulness: we are concerned here with a partial defence to murder and the circumstances in which it is appropriate to reduce liability for murder to that of the less serious offence of manslaughter. We are saying that killing in response to sexual infidelity is not a circumstance in which such a reduction can be justified. The onus on those who seek to remove the provision from the Bill is to explain why it is believed that the killing of one person by another simply because the victim had been unfaithful is grounds for reducing a murder conviction to manslaughter. I understand that neither noble Lord is suggesting that it should. Therefore, I argue that the clarification is helpful because it simply states that which many believe is now and should be the case in relation to murder and killing on that basis.