R v Majewski [1977] AC 443

• A man was involved in a pub fight where he attacked the landlord, other customers and police officers.

• Given that his drunken state was self induced, his defence of intoxication was not to be admitted.

Lord Elwyn Jones

• Says that getting so drunk was reckless, and he deprived himself of self control, therefore he is to blame.

Lord Salmon

• Refers to the precedent of Lipman, where a man under influence of hallucinatory drugs suffocated a woman by stuffing clothes down her throat in the belief that she was a snake and was convicted. He regards this as a socially important policy lest people be freed from personal responsibility and the law be brought into disrepute.

• The argument that section 8 requires all evidence (including drunkenness) to be taken into account and therefore to ignore drunkenness is illegal, is wrong.

• Section 8 is a law of evidence not a substantive law itself. 

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