Drunkenness as defence ‘will be reviewed’

Press, 20 October 1980, Page 25

Drunkenness as defence ‘will be reviewed’

Parliamentary reporter Drunkenness as a mitigating factor or cause for dismissal of criminal charges will be reviewed, the Minister of Justice (Mr McLay) has said. He was answering the member of Parliament for Napier (Mr G. Christie) as to why a police application for leave to appeal against the acquittal of a man charged, with indecently assaulting a woman, aged 82, had been denied. Mr McLay said that the right of an informant to appeal against an acquittal was limited solely to questions of law, and in the Napier case the judge had correctly stated the law in conformity with a decision of tha Court of Appeal. The judge had been left in doubt whether the accused, because of drunkenness, intended to commit the offence. In accordance with the law as it stood the police appeal could not be allbwed..

Replying to the mefriber for Waipa (Miss Marilyn Waring), Mr McLay said he had received several criticisms of the law and that he was concerned about the present position. “Therefore I intend to refer the whole question of drunkenness in relation to criminal offences to the Criminal Law Reform Committee for full consideration,” he said. He was concerned by a remark made by the Napier judge that he had been obliged to dismiss the charge even though the woman, had clearly been the victim of an indecent assault. “He said the accused gets off because of the law iri this particular matter, arid that is my concern,” Mr McLay said.

Drunkenness was never a defence tci a criminal charge, but the law had always been that if the drunkenness was bad enough it might prevent a person from having the necessary intent to coriimit the crime.

The Law Reform Committee would consider this bforid issue.