| Citation | (1985) 1 WLR 816 (CA) |
| Date of Judgement | 22nd March, 1985 |
| Court | England and Wales Court of Appeal |
| Case Type | Criminal Case |
| Appellant/Petitioner/Plaintiff | Regina |
| Respondents/Defendant | Bird |
| Bench | The Lord Chief Justice of England: Lord Lane, Mr. Justice Skinner, Mr. Justice Simon Brown |
| Sections Referred | Unlawful Wounding under Section 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act, 1861 |
| Cases Referred | R. v. Julien (1969) 1 WLR 839; R. v. Cannes (1971) 1 VLR 1600 |
FACTS-
On March 10, 1984, Debbie Bird, the appellant, turned seventeen years old. There was a gathering in Harlow. Sadly, it was during that party that the sad events occurred that resulted in her being detained as a minor.
Darren Marder was a guest at the party and would subsequently fall prey to the events that occurred. He was friends with the appellant and they were dating between around January and the middle of 1983. When Marder arrived at the party with his new girlfriend despite their close relationship having ended, a quarrel broke out for unimportant reasons. Marder used a lot of profanity and cursing and fled when the appellant requested him to.
Shortly after, he foolishly came back, and the two of them got into another argument and verbal altercation. The parties argued over what happened afterward, but not nearly as much as they do when such unexpected events occurred. The appellant hit Marder in the face after spilling a glass of Pernod on her. There were more incidents of physical aggression between them. According to the appellant, when she was being detained and pressed up against a wall, the time came for her to rush Marder with her hand, which sadly was the one that was holding the Pernod glass.
The glass broke in his face, causing a fracture and the loss of one eye. Even though it turned out to be a dreadful thing, she plainly had no idea how much pain she was about to cause this young man.
The prosecution contends that Marder only struck the appellant once, and that strike was intended to calm her down—a common practice for handling hysteria. She was required to prove to the jury that she was not acting in self-defense when she replied to that slap by using a weapon as lethal as a glass.
Second, rather than expressing sorrow for the event, the appellant indicated she would behave in the same way again if the circumstances were the same, according to Marder and Miss Bryant, who was his new girlfriend. Third, there was the evidence of Mrs. Sharpe, who said that the appellant had informed her that she had stabbed Marder in the face with a glass after he had struck her during the incident. Mrs. Sharpe is the owner of the house where the party was held. The cops interviewed the complaint directly. She claimed that she didn’t realise she had a glass in the hand that she used to strike the complaint until much later.
The complainant provided evidence. She said that her actions had been motivated by self-defense. Someone was pushing her. Marder had threatened to strike her if she didn’t stop talking. She was being held by him when he slapped her in the face, and she was left with no choice but to fight back in order to protect herself. She didn’t see that she was holding the glass since she was so immersed in the pain of the situation.
ISSUES-
Is the appellant eligible to assert self-defense?
GROUNDS OF APPEAL-
The judge erred when she instructed the jury that the complainant had to explicitly show that she didn’t want to fight before the jury could consider her claim of self-defense which they didn’t. That is indeed the crux of the complaint as presented by the complainant before this Court by Mr. Pavry in what, if we may say so, was a highly useful argument. She was sentenced to nine months of youth custody.
The point of consideration is that it was an obligation on their part to retreat before using force, which is acceptable only in homicidal cases.
JUDGEMENT-
In this instance, the court decided that only the side who had been attacked had the right to self-defense, and not to the one who attacked.
It was essential to show that one had made an effort to free oneself or shown a lack of willingness to fight in order to be the attacked party or It was important to appear that you were making an effort to avoid a fight or that you were reluctant to start one in order to be taken for the party being attacked. They said that refusing to fight or making attempts to flee, for example, was just evidence that you were the one being attacked and not your ally and that there were other ways to demonstrate this. Lord Lane emphasised that while withdrawing could provide evidence of the defendant’s circumstances, it was not necessary and that the need to do so no longer existed.
REFERENCES-
This article is written by Anshula Grover of the School of Law, Shoolini University and an Intern at Legal Vidhiya.
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