header-logo header-logo

Home Login E-newsletter About us

Presumption of innocence: just empty rhetoric?

© Copyright LexisNexis 2025. All Rights Reserved.
17 February 2023 / Simon Parsons
Issue: 8013 / Categories: Features , Criminal , Procedure & practice
printer mail-detail
111188
Is the ‘golden thread’ of Woolmington wearing thin? Simon Parsons examines the insanity defence & legal burdens of proof
  • The defence of insanity is the only common law exception to the Woolmington thread—the presumption of innocence. An accused person who raises the defence of insanity has the legal burden of proving it.
  • Woolmington should be extended to both limbs of the insanity defence, as it seems morally wrong to impose a legal burden of proof on accused persons in respect of both limbs where they have an extremely limited grasp of reality.

In the famous case of Woolmington v DPP [1935] AC 462, Reginald Woolmington and Violet Smith were married and set up home together, but Violet was unhappy, so she left Reginald and went home to her mother. Reginald was terribly upset, so he got a gun and decided to go to see Violet to persuade her to return to him. When they met, Reginald said: ‘Are you coming back?’ Violet replied no, and in response

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content
If you are already a subscriber sign in
...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Read All
Sponsored by
Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Firm strengthens international funds capability with senior hire

Gilson Gray—Jeremy Davy

Gilson Gray—Jeremy Davy

Partner appointed as head of residential conveyancing for England

DR Solicitors—Paul Edels

DR Solicitors—Paul Edels

Specialist firm enhances corporate healthcare practice with partner appointment

NEWS
Read All
NLJ this week: Motor finance faces £11bn reckoning
The proposed £11bn redress scheme following the Supreme Court’s motor finance rulings is analysed in this week’s NLJ by Fred Philpott of Gough Square Chambers
NLJ this week: Gold on Awaab’s Law & digital divorce
In this week's issue, Stephen Gold, NLJ columnist and former district judge, surveys another eclectic fortnight in procedure. With humour and humanity, he reminds readers that beneath the procedural dust, the law still changes lives
NLJ this week: AI in the dock—courts need literacy, not fear
Generative AI isn’t the villain of the courtroom—it’s the misunderstanding of it that’s dangerous, argues Dr Alan Ma of Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Law Society in this week's NLJ
NLJ this week: Landlords lose their upward climb
James Naylor of Naylor Solicitors dissects the government’s plan to outlaw upward-only rent review (UORR) clauses in new commercial leases under Schedule 31 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in this week's NLJ. The reform, he explains, marks a seismic shift in landlord-tenant power dynamics: rents will no longer rise inexorably, and tenants gain statutory caps and procedural rights
NLJ this week: Privy Council undresses the ‘shareholder rule’
Writing in NLJ this week, James Harrison and Jenna Coad of Penningtons Manches Cooper chart the Privy Council’s demolition of the long-standing ‘shareholder rule’ in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investments
Copyright © 2025 LexisNexis
back-to-top-scroll