Criminal insanity as a defence to wounds inflicted during rental process.

We’re in the process of renting a new flat. I’m also in the process of studying for two straggling exams, one of which happens to be on Criminal Law. We received our new Tenancy Agreement and were surprised to discover that it includes what effectively amounts to a £500 move-in fee. At the same time, I happen to be on the “Criminal Insanity” section of my revision. This prompted some timely considerations.

INSANITY In England, a plea of insanity in criminal proceedings used to lead automatically to indefinite detention in a mental hospital. (Since 2004 judges have had more sentencing discretion.) To a red-blooded Republican this might seem meet and good. However, the definition of ‘insanity’ is this: a disease of the mind that causes a defect in the defendant’s reason so that he either does not know the nature of his act, or doesn’t realize it’s wrong. This has led to some problems.

Disease of the mind has been interpreted by judges on this island to include epileptic seizures, hyperglycemia caused by failure to take insulin, and some cases of somnambulism (sleepwalking) - the cause must simply be ‘internal’. Imagine a mental hospital filled with poor sops who happened to connect with someone during the course of their involuntary epileptic seizure, or who forgot to bring their insulin injection with them to work and ended up causing ‘criminal damage’ by dropping something while lapsing into a hyperglycemic coma. Clearly the law needs some help. As I am neither diabetic nor epileptic, nor do I have any other diseases of the mind, I would not be able to plead insanity to any criminal acts I committed against or as a result of my new letting agent.

AUTOMATISM If, on the other hand, the mind’s loss of control over the body is caused by something external - for example, the defendant is hit over the head and concussed, or has some adverse reaction to a prescribed medication - the defendant will be acquitted. In one case, a girl suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (an internal cause) fell into a dissociative fugue and committed various crimes including criminal damage and battery. Because PTSD is an internal cause she would have had to plead insanity, and because this is such an unattractive option she pleaded guilty instead and was convicted. However on appeal the judge found that the cause of her PTSD (that is, being raped) was external, and therefore she was acquitted as the defence of automatism applied.

I would never argue that having to pay an absurd moving-in fee is on any level similar to being raped, no matter how unjust it may feel. But given the amount of stress it’s put me through, I would suggest that moving apartments in England can give rise to some species of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If this were caused by something external to my body (i.e. the unjustified application of force to my bank account) and the result was that in a fit of stressed rage I were to commit a crime, I could be acquitted by the defence of automatism!

Unfortunately this probably wouldn’t work, if only on a policy basis, as most people living in England must have experienced this sort of PTSD and the courts simply can’t condone or accept the universalization of such of behaviour.

There’s also the case of Rabey, a Canadian (embarrassing!!) student who hit a girl over the head with a rock after she rejected his advances. He claimed that the heartbreak caused him to lose consciousness, and that it was while under this spell that he committed the act. The Supreme Court saw through him, though, and held that the ‘everyday frustrations of life’ wouldn’t give rise to the kind of trauma necessary to substantiate such a claim. As getting ripped off by letting agents is one of the everyday frustrations of life over here, my case would probably fail too.

What if in my misery I go down to the Rose and Crown and drown my sorrows, later committing a crime in my drunken state?

INTOXICATION Sadly for many defendants, being drunk is not a defence. (We’ve now left the realm of criminal insanity and are into plain old crime.) If you get drunk you may not be able to form the necessary intention to commit a crime, depending on how drunk you are. For some crimes, those of ‘basic intent’ which include recklessness, the courts will simply substitute your decision to drink too much (which could be said to be reckless) for the formation of guilty intent, one of the necessary ingredients in establishing criminal liability. For crimes of ‘specific intent’, like murder, your drunkenness may bar you from forming the necessary intent, which for such serious crimes is more than just recklessness. But they’ll get you for some other crime of basic intent, like manslaughter, which can also carry a life sentence. You must also not get drunk in order to brush up the courage to commit your crime of specific intent as the defendant in Gallagher tried, as despite the lack of coincidence in time between the ‘mens rea’ (guilty mind) and ‘actus reus’ (guilty act) the courts will decide you’re guilty and put you away.

On the other hand, if I become involuntarily intoxicated I may have a defence. For example, on top of charging this exorbitant fee my new letting agent slips LSD into my Britvic tonic water, as a result of which I go on a crime spree. I wasn’t reckless (unless you count dealing with the local letting agents as recklessness, which might actually be valid) and my intoxication will therefore not ‘replace’ any intention I had not formed.

Unfortunately, as a result of my sense of injustice and frustration I may already have formed this intention. Therefore any involuntary intoxication will not help me, as in the case of Kingston in which a horrible fact pattern found a homo-pedophilic man locked into a room with a young boy by an enemy who had drugged him so that he lost his usual inhibition. Although the defendant was arguably innocent, the fact that he had homo-pedophilic urges otherwise satisfied the ‘guilty mind’ requirement and he was convicted. On these grounds my defence of involuntary intoxication would probably also fail.

CONCLUSION There are other defences I could try, such as loss of control, but I’m afraid I’ve already spent too much time away from my study guides and frantic case-memorization. I’ll therefore end by concluding that unfortunately for ex-pat renters, you just have to take this kind of incursion into your bank account and dignity when dealing with letting agents in England. Criminal insanity is an undesirable defence as the last thing you want is to be stuck in a mental hospital here (although on the bright side, no letting agents!), courts are unlikely to accept that automatism is a result of letting agent-related PTSD, and involuntary intoxication simply will not work if you’re already harbouring violent thoughts toward letting agents. My advice is therefore to try and get home as soon as you can and avoid the problem altogether.