R v Quayle [2005] 1 WLR 3642

• Defendants either grew and used cannabis so as to alleviate severe pain/sleeplessness or gave it to others who said that they needed it to alleviate pain.

• They were all convicted, in some cases after the judge refused to allow defence of necessity, and some after the judge had given a different definition to the standard one.

• Either way, CA said that there was no defence of necessity since for the defence to work there had to be fear of death or serious physical injury - not just pain.

LJ Mance

• Said that different principles applied to necessity depending on the area concerned.

  • In R v Z Lord Bingham said the law was merely concerned with a potential excuse.

  • In Re Conjoined Twins LJ Walker said that it was about choosing the lesser of two evils.

• LJ Mance says Bingham’s confined definition is a good one. For necessity to apply, there had to be extraneous circumstances capable of scrutiny by judge & jury (i.e. there has to be an “outside” influence - it would not be “necessity where Defendant drove when disqualified to stop her herself committing suicide).

  • For example, in Rodger [1998] 1 Cr. App. R. 143, Defendant (a prison warder) allowed X (a prisoner) to escape since X was having suicidal thoughts, necessity was NOT allowed, since the danger was not external and could not be objectively assessed, but instead was internal and therefore subjective.

  • As Bingham said in R v Z there had to be a “just and well grounded fear” of death or serious injury for duress of circumstances/necessity to apply. 

RELATED CASES

• R v Z (Hasan)

• R v Re A (Conjoined Twins) - Additional Analysis (1)

• R v Re A (Conjoined Twins) - Additional Analysis (2)