Law Weblog

The Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 (DVCV) makes two changes in respect of the new section 5 DVCV offence, and murder/manslaughter offences.

Thursday 24 February 2005 at 8:08 pm | In News | Post Comment

In cases where it is difficult or impossible to prove which of two people caused a death (usually parents of a child) the defence make a “half-time” submission that there is no case to answer”, if the prosecution has not proved the case the trial ends at that point.
The changes relate to:
a) the drawing of adverse inferences from silence in court, and
b) the postponement, until the end of the defence case, of the decision on the question of whether there is a case to answer.
Both have effect in relation only to the charge of murder or manslaughter, when those charges are accompanied by charges under the new offence.

These procedural changes were proposed by the Law Commission in their report, Children: Their Non-accidental Death or Serious Injury, although the Act adopts a tighter mechanism for triggering them to keep them closely targeted at the “which of you did it?” cases.

The prohibition on a conviction being based wholly or mainly on the inference from silence is not relevant.