Crimes Act 1961 Westlaw Lexis Nexis
There are three parts to self defence:
The jury is asked to consider first what the accused believed the circumstances to be, from his or her point of view. The second question is whether, bearing in mind that belief of the accused about what was happening, he or she was acting in self-defence (again considered from his or her point of view). The last question is whether, given that belief, the force used was actually reasonable: R v Li CA140_00 28 June 2000
For a recent Court of Appeal case, where leave to appeal was refused by the Supreme Court, see Pakai v R [2016] NZCA 343.
Insanity and self defence – see Fairburn v R [2010] NZCA 44 citing R v Green [1993] 2 NZLR 513 (1993) 9 CRNZ 523 for the proposition that “even an insane delusion might require [self defence] to be put to the jury”. As noted in R v Bridger [2003] 1 NZLR 636, (2002) 19 CRNZ 676 (CA) the question of whether “the circumstances as [an accused] believes them to be” in s 48 of the Crimes Act applies to sane beliefs only is a very difficult question (at [34] – [35]).
In Oye v R [2014] 1 All ER 902 the defendant with insane delusions was permitted to utilise the first part of the self defence justification – whether he genuinely believed it was necessary to use force to defend himself – but his delusions were not permitted to inform the second part – what nature and degree of force was reasonable in the circumstances.
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