Press Release

Bringing the law of homicide into the 21st century

29 November 2006

The Law Commission today publishes its recommendations for the law of murder and homicide.
This is the first review of the law of murder and homicide for half a century.

Professor Jeremy Horder, the Commissioner who has been leading the project, said:

“The Law Commission has previously said that the law of murder is in a mess. The law can be unclear, unfair, or too generous to killers. Juries have too few choices between verdicts to reflect how blameworthy the offender really was. This frequently leads to judges having an inadequate basis on which to sentence offenders. Victims’ families also rightly object to the excessive breadth of the different kinds of manslaughter, as compared with the single offence of murder.

“The overwhelming majority of our consultees favoured restructuring the law so as to address these serious and persistent problems. We believe that our recommendations, and in particular our recommendation for clearly defined offences of first degree and second degree murder, will go a long way to putting right these injustices and inadequacies in the law.”

The Home Office will now take over the review of the law and will be consulting in 2007 on broader issues of public policy, such as sentencing.