A partner’s affair can no longer be treated by courts as a defensible reason to lose control and kill – but it can be a factor,arliament made clear two years ago that sexual infidelity should not be allowed as a defence for murder, whatever the circumstances. A partner’s affair could no longer be treated by courts as a defensible reason to lose control and kill.However, giving judgment last week,
on three domestic killing appeals, Lord Chief Justice Judge ruled: “Where sexual infidelity is integral to and forms an essential part of the context the prohibition does not operate to exclude it.”
It seems that parliament says infidelity doesn’t count and the court says it does.Killing a wife for infidelity was “classic” provocation under the law prior to 2009.
The courts were littered with cases in which men blamed their partner’s adultery for making them kill her.AdvertisementIn the case of Morgan James Smith in 1999,
Lord Hoffman noted that historically one of the legal justifications for killing due to losing self-control had been finding a wife in adultery. It was regarded as “the highest invasion of property”.
