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Self-defence is a defence permitting reasonable force to be used to defend one's

self or another.[1] This defence arises both from common law and the Criminal Law
Act 1967.[2] Self-defence is a justification defence rather than an excuse.
Contents

1 Principles
1.1 Common law (self defence)
1.2 Reasonable force
1.3 Belief in imminent attack
1.3.1 Intoxication
2 Statutory law
3 Action by private citizens
3.1 Arrest
3.2 Prevention of Crime
3.3 Prevention of breach of peace
4 Use of force by police officers
5 Use of force by soldiers
6 Reform
7 See also
8 References

Principles
Common law (self defence)

The common law defence of self-defence applies where the defendant uses necessary,
reasonable and proportionate force to defend themselves or another from imminent
attack. It is a complete defence to all non-sexual offences involving the unlawful
use of force (anything from battery to murder). Because the defence results in a
complete acquittal, the courts have interpreted the defence in a restrictive way so
as to avoid acquitting too easily. For example, the courts will not usually acquit
the defendant just because he thought the force used was reasonable – whether or
not the force used was reasonable will be objectively assessed by the jury and not
simply according to what the defendant thought at the time.
“ A defendant is entitled to use reasonable force to protect himself, others
for whom he is responsible and his property. … It must be reasonable. ”
— Beckford v The Queen [1988] AC 130[3]

Lord Morris in Palmer v R[4] stated the following about someone confronted by an
intruder or defending himself against attack:
“ If there has been an attack so that defence is reasonably necessary, it will
be recognised that a person defending himself cannot weigh to a nicety the exact
measure of his defensive action. If the jury thought that in a moment of unexpected
anguish a person attacked had only done what he honestly and instinctively thought
necessary that would be the most potent evidence that only reasonable defensive
action had been taken… ”
— Palmer v R [1971] AC 814
Reasonable force
Force is reasonable if a reasonable person would think it necessary to use force
and would have used the same level of force as the defendant. This test is
fundamentally objective: the defendant may not decide for himself what is
reasonable based on his own values. However, the hypothetical reasonable person is
imbued with the defendant's factual beliefs about the circumstances.[5] This is the
case even if the defendant's beliefs about the circumstances are mistaken.[6]

Whether the force was reasonable is a question of fact for the jury. The jury may
take into account all relevant circumstances of the case, including the level of
threat (as the defendant believed it to be), the pressure of being under attack,
the likely harm and the interests the defendant was protecting.[7] However, the
jury may not rely on facts which the defendant was not aware of.[8] For example, if
the defendant was unaware that the victim had a knife, the jury must ignore the
fact that the victim was armed.

The classic test comes from the case of Palmer v The Queen, on appeal to the Privy
Council in 1971:
“ The defence of self-defence is one which can be and will be readily
understood by any jury. It is a straightforward conception. It involves no abstruse
legal thought. … Only common sense is needed for its understanding. It is both good
law and good sense that a man who is attacked may defend himself. It is both good
law and good sense that he may do, but may only do, what is reasonably necessary.
But everything will depend upon the particular facts and circumstances. … It may in
some cases be only sensible and clearly possible to take some simple avoiding
action. Some attacks may be serious and dangerous. Others may not be. If there is
some relatively minor attack it would not be common sense to permit some action of
retaliation which was wholly out of proportion to the necessities of the situation.
If an attack is serious so that it puts someone in immediate peril then immediate
defensive action may be necessary. If the moment is one of crisis for someone in
imminent danger he may have [to] avert the danger by some instant reaction. If the
attack is all over and no sort of peril remains then the employment of force may be
by way of revenge or punishment or by way of paying off an old score or may be pure
aggression. There may no longer be any link with a necessity of defence… If a jury
thought that in a moment of unexpected anguish a person attacked had only done what
he honestly and instinctively thought was necessary that would be most potent
evidence that only reasonable defensive action had been taken. ”
— Palmer v The Queen [1971] AC 814, 832

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 inserted a new
section 76(6A) into the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. This provision
clarifies that there is no duty to retreat, although an opportunity to retreat may
still be taken into account when assessing whether the force was reasonable.

In R v Lindsay,[9] the defendant, who picked up a sword in self-defence when

attacked in his home by three masked intruders armed with loaded handguns, killed
one of them by slashing him repeatedly. The prosecution case was that, although he
had initially acted in self-defence, he had then lost his self-control and
demonstrated a clear intent to kill the armed intruder. The Court of Appeal
confirmed an eight-year term of imprisonment.

In April 2013, the Crime and Courts Act 2013 further amended section 76. This
amended the law to clarify that allow homeowners may still rely on self-defence in
some cases where the force used is unreasonable, so long as it is was not grossly
disproportionate.[10] This was further clarified by the High Court in January 2016.
[11]
Belief in imminent attack

The modern law on belief is stated in R v Owino:

“ A person may use such force as is [objectively] reasonable in the
circumstances as he [subjectively] believes them to be. ”
— R v Owino (1996) 2 Cr. App. R. 128 at 134[12]

If the defendant genuinely believes that an attack is imminent or underway, it does

not matter that they were mistaken.

Preemptive self-defence is permissible in some cases. Lord Griffith said in

Beckford v R:
“ A man about to be attacked does not have to wait for his assailant to strike
the first blow or fire the first shot; circumstances may justify a pre-emptive
strike. ”
— R v Beckford (1988) 1 AC 130[13]

A defendant does not necessarily lose the right to claim self-defence merely
because they instigated the confrontation. In some cases, a person who kills in the
course of a quarrel or crime they started might still act in self-defence if the
victim disproportionately escalates the violence. In Rashford,[14] the defendant
sought out the victim, intending to attack him as revenge for an earlier dispute.
The victim and his friends responded out of proportion to the defendant's
aggression. At this point, the defendant had to switch from aggression to defence.
The Court of Appeal held that the defendant will only lose the defence by being the
aggressor throughout. The question is whether the defendant feared that he was in
immediate danger from which he had no other means of escape, and if the violence he
used was no more than appeared necessary to preserve his own life or protect
himself from serious injury, he would be entitled to rely on self-defence. On the
facts, the jury's decision to convict was not unsafe.
Intoxication

The rule that the defendant can rely on any honest belief is altered where the
defendant has consumed alcohol or drugs. In R v Letenock,[15] the defendant claimed
mistakenly to believe that the victim was about to attack him. The judge directed
the jury that his drunkenness was irrelevant unless he was so drunk as to be
incapable of knowing what he was doing. The Court of Criminal Appeal quashed his
conviction for murder and substituted a verdict of manslaughter. Lord Reading CJ
said at 224:
“ The only element of doubt in the case is whether there was anything which
might have caused the applicant, in his drunken condition, to believe that he was
going to be struck. ”
— R v Letenock (1917) 12 Cr. App. R. 221

This suggests that the question is whether there was any intelligible basis for the
defendant’s belief. Hatton[16] held that a defendant who raised the issue of self-
defence was not entitled to rely on a mistaken belief induced by voluntary
intoxication, regardless of whether the defence was raised against a charge of
murder or one of manslaughter. This applied the ratio decidendi in R v O' Grady[17]
for murder and R v Majewski[18] for manslaughter. It follows that, if the defendant
is voluntarily drunk and kills in what he mistakenly imagines to be self-defence
because he imagines (as in Hatton) that the deceased was attacking him with a
sword, he has no defence to a charge of murder; but if he claims to be so
intoxicated that he is experiencing hallucinations and imagines that he is fighting
giant snakes (as in Lipman)[19] then he can be guilty only of manslaughter.

The House of Commons Library compiled a list of people who have acted in self-
defence as part of its briefing on the Criminal Law (Amendment) (Householder
Protection) Bill 2005.[20]
Statutory law

Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 provides that:

 (1) A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the
prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders
or suspected offenders or of persons unlawfully at large.

(2) Subsection (1) above shall replace the rules of the common law on the
question when force used for a purpose mentioned in the subsection is justified by
that purpose.

The definition of what constitutes a 'crime' was clarified under R v Jones

(Margaret), R v Milling et al: HL 29 MAR 2006 which stated it covered any domestic
criminal offence under the law of England and Wales.[21][22]

Thus, reasonable force can be used in the prevention of any crime or in making an
arrest to:

allow the defendant to defend himself from any form of attack so long as the
attack is criminal.
prevent an attack on another person, e.g. in R v Rose,[23] a young son shot
dead his father to protect his mother from a serious assault, believing that this
was the only practical way of defending her given his small physical size.
defend his property against criminal attack in the widest sense, i.e. it can be
physical possessions like a watch or credit cards demanded by a mugger (where there
would also be physical danger to the owner) or, at the other extreme, possession of
land.

Section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 codifies English case
law on self-defence. It made no changes to the law. However, the section was
amended on 25 April 2013 by section 43 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 to allow
people to use greater force in defence of their homes against burglars.[24] In
those circumstances, force need no longer be reasonable as long as it is not
"grossly disproportionate."

The Human Rights Act 1998 incorporates into English law article 2 of the European
Convention on Human Rights, which defines the right to life as follows:

Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of

his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his
conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.
Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this
Article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely
necessary:

(a) in defence of any person from unlawful violence;

(b) in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person
lawfully detained;
(c) in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or
insurrection.