Community Life

Plans to reform the murder laws in England and Wales have been revealed today. New legislation would mean victims of domestic violence who kill their partners could be charged with manslaughter instead of murder.

The law currently allows men who murder their wife or partner in a fit of jealousy to plead provocation but not women who kill someone who's been abusing them for years. 

Erin Pizzey who founded a women's refuge group in Chiswick in the 70s, believes the proposals allow domestic violence to be used as an excuse. She says:

"As far as I'm concerned thou shalt not kill...we have to stop loosening laws to allow people excuses. If you're in a violent relationship, if you're a man or a women you get out."

The proposals

Defendants who successfully claim they were "seriously wronged" by the victim could now be convicted of manslaughter.

Under the plan, long-term domestic abuse victims can also use a partial defence of "fear of serious violence".

Attorney General Baroness Scotland said the proposed changes would bring murder laws "right up to date".

The plans face public consultation before new legislation is introduced.

They follow a 2006 report from the Law Commission which made wide-ranging recommendations for changes to legislation. The proposals suggest the current defence of provocation should be scrapped.

However, the new defence in its place - that "words and conduct" left the killer "seriously wronged" - should only be available in exceptional cases, the report says.

The Ministry of Justice has stressed that the law would be changed to make it clear that someone who discovers their partner is having an affair would be unable to argue they had been "seriously wronged".

But barrister Geoffrey Robertson, QC, told the BBC that the changes did not address all his concerns:

"Quite a few of these reforms are moderate and sensible, but the real problem with the law of murder is that it doesn't distinguish - it has a mandatory life sentence.

"Any mandatory sentence is unjust because it doesn't distinguish between the terrorist and the gangland executioner and the mercy killer at the other end of the scale, who maybe doesn't deserve to go to prison at all, but has to be sentenced to life imprisonment, and the domestic killings."

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