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Abstract: This article (written from the perspective of a criminal law practitioner) starts from the premise that women rarely kill and that most deaths, which occur in the context of domestic abuse, involve male abusers who kill their female victims.The article contends that there are clear issues of whether current law is truly gender neutral in substantive and sentencing contexts; that elements of statutory and judicial sentencing policy have the potential to adversely affect outcomes in respect of women who kill their abusers; that the partial defences to murder of so-called “diminished responsibility” and “loss of control” have been interpreted and applied by the courts more restrictively than had been anticipated by many criminal lawyers, policy makers and legislators. The Law Commission’s latest full review of homicide law (started in 2025), including rules relating to accessorial liability and tiers of homicide, is to be welcomed.
Keywords: homicide; loss of control; sentencing; statistics; women who kill
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