SUICIDE PACTS - S4 HOMICIDE ACT 1957

s4(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 killing himself or being killed by a third person.

s4(2) Where it is shown that a person charged with the murder of another killled the other or was a party to his killing himself or 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.

Whilst suicide is no longer a crime (Suicide Act 1961) the killing of another consequent upon a suicide pact remains a criminal offence.  A suicide pact is a common agreement between between two or more persons that all parties to the agreement should die.  Each party to the agreement must have the settled intention of dying in pursuance of a suicide pact (s4(3)).

The burden of proving that the killing was in pursuance of a suicide pact rests with the defence of the balance of probabilities.

INFANTICIDE ACT 1938

Section 1(1) Where a woman by any wilful act or omission causes the death of her child being a child under the age of twelve months, but at the time of the act or omission the balance of her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child or by reason of the effect of lactation consequent upon the birth of the child, then, notwithstanding that the circumstances were such that but for this Act the offence would have amounted to murder, she shall be guilty of [an offence], to wit of infanticide, and may for such offence be dealt with and punished as if she had been guilty of the offence of manslaughter of the child.

The defence relates to the mother only and relies on a number of condition:

~the child must be under 12 months. 

~the killing must have occurred when the balance of the mother's mind was disturbed,

~the reason for this disturbance relates to giving birth or lactation (breast feeding).

If those conditions are satisfied then the mother will be convicted of manslaughter. No mandatory life sentence. The judge will have discretion to sentence.

The Criminal Law Revision Committee (14th Report) made recommendations in relation to this measure (See Allen, pp. 302-3).

INFANT LIFE PRESERVATION ACT 1929

S 1(1) any person who, with intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive, by any wilful act causes a child to die before it has an existence independent of its mother, shall be guilty of felony of child destruction, and shall be liable on conviction thereof on indictiment to penal servitude for life.  Provided that no person shall be found guilty of an offence under this section unless it is proved that the act which caused the death of the child was not done in good faith for the purpose only of preserving the life of the mother. 

This measure provides for the crime of "child destruction".  This will occure where the defendant wilfully (deliberately) causes a child to die before it has an "independent existence".  Upon conviction the defendant will serve life imprisonment.

This measure also provides a defence where the act complained of was done in good faith for the sake of preserving the life of the mother.   This part of the provision is sometimes referred to as the "proviso". By way of example look at the case of Bourne.

Bourne performed an operation on a girl of 14 years old which caused her to miscarry.  The girl had been raped in violent circumstances by a man who was convicted of the crime.    As a conseqence of the rape the girl became pregnant.  The operation was performed on the girl with the consent of her parents.  The defendant was charge with unlawfully procuring a miscarriage contrary to s 58 Offences Against the Persons Act 1861.  The court held that the word "unlawfully" in s58  was capable of importing the meaning expressed by the proviso in s1(1) of the Infant Life Preservation Act 1929.  In other words the Crown had to prove that the defendant did not procure the miscarriage in good faith for the purpose only of of preserving the life of the mother.

LEGAL SOURCES

R v Bourne [1939] 1 KB 687

READ M. J. Allen, Textbook on Criminal Law, 5th edition, 1999, pp.302-303. Dine and Gobert, pp.629-631 and 270-271.