Intoxication Essay

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The law on intoxication deals with defendants (D) who commit the actus reus of an offence whilst under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. This involves balancing the normal legal principle that the mens rea is required before there can be a criminal conviction, against public policy considerations which require that the courts cannot be seen to allow intoxication as an excuse for lawless behaviour.

Intoxication can only be a defence if it negates the mens rea of the offence. This means that the D must be so intoxicated that he is unaware of what he is doing. As in the case of Sheehan and Moore, in which the two D's killed a tramp and set fire to him whilst being very drunk. Neither defendant was found guilty of murder as the intoxication was so bad, that they had no mens rea and were instead convicted of manslaughter. The approach is justifiable in cases of voluntary intoxication, as D is responsible for any intoxication that may have caused him to have the mens rea. Therefore, the legal principle that requires mens rea is upheld, along with the public policy of protecting modern day sociefrom drunken violence.

The House of Lords (H/L) has ruled that the law is not interested in why someone had the mens rea for an offence. Only that they did it, "A drunken intent is intention nevertheless." This was applied in the case of Kingston, in which a known paedophile was drugged and photographed abusing a sleeping teenage boy. H/L upheld his conviction as the