Jaggard v Dickinson

Facts

The defendant, who was very drunk, went by mistake to a house which she believed was the home of a friend. She broke a window to get in. She believed that her friend would have consented to her damaging the property in this way, had the friend known of the circumstances.

History

The justices convicted her of criminal damage, on the basis that her drunken state meant she could not rely on the belief. She appealed by way of case stated to the Divisional Court.

Issue

Whether the lawful excuse provision in section 5(2)(a) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 applied where the honest belief that the owner would have consented was held because the defendant was drunk, or whether voluntary intoxication meant that she could not rely on it.

Held

Appeal allowed. The honest belief of the defendant in consent, whether or not it was justified, supplied lawful excuse, and the cause of the belief, which was intoxication, was irrelevant.

Ratio

• Section 5(2) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 provides that a person has lawful excuse if he believed that the person entitled to consent would have consented, and it says that it is immaterial whether the belief is justified or not. A drunken belief therefore qualifies, and the rule that voluntary intoxication is not a defence to a crime of basic intent does not displace the words of the statute.

The judgments

Key reasoning

• The statutory defence is framed by reference to the belief of the defendant, and its words are that it is immaterial whether the belief is justified, which covers a belief that is not justified because it was produced by intoxication.
• The rule on voluntary intoxication relates to the mental element of recklessness and intent, whereas lawful excuse is a separate statutory matter defined by belief, and the two should not be run together.
• To exclude a drunken belief would add to the section a qualification which is not in its words.

Where it fits in the module

In the Incapacity and General Defences topic the case tests the scope of the rule on voluntary intoxication, and the relationship of that rule with defences framed in terms of belief. The debate is whether intoxicated mistakes should ever excuse. Students should compare the later approach of the courts to intoxicated mistaken beliefs in self-defence, which does not allow them to found the defence, and consider whether Jaggard is consistent with it.

Criticisms

• The result allows a person to rely on a belief that no sober person would hold, which seems contrary to the policy that the voluntarily intoxicated should be treated as if sober.
• The distinction between the mental element for the offence and a defence of belief is formal, and treats intoxication differently in two parts of the same offence without a principled reason.
• It has been argued that the case rests on a literal reading of the Act, and that a later court faced with the same issue would reach a result in line with later cases on intoxicated mistakes.