Coercive Control: An Offence But Not a Defence: R v Challen [2019] EWCA Crim 916, Court of Appeal

Abstract

In August 2010, Sally Challen (C), then aged 56, killed her 61-year-old husband, Richard Challen (R), with at least 20 blows of a hammer at their family home in Surrey. They had been married for 31 years but R had been 'unfaithful on several occasions' which had caused C 'considerable distress'. Eventually, in 2009, C moved out of the family home and began divorce proceedings. However, C found it 'difficult to cope' with the situation and in June 2010 proposed a reconciliation, to which R agreed. Shortly afterwards, she rescinded the decree nisi which had been obtained by this point in time, and the couple agreed to sell the family home and go to Australia for six months.Nevertheless, C remained suspicious about R's relationships with other women. On the fateful day, C and R met at the family home to clear out the house and garage in advance of their overseas trip. In the afternoon, C went out to buy food but on her return she noticed that the phone had been moved. She dialled the last-called number and realised that R had rung another woman. C proceeded to prepare lunch but while R was eating she produced a hammer that she had brought with her and killed him. C then left the family home and returned to her own property where she spent the night. The next day she called her cousin and said she was at Beachy Head in East Sussex. The cousin called the police and a chaplain, who arrived just as C was walking towards the cliff edge. Over the next four hours she told a police negotiator that she felt like R had treated her 'appallingly badly' over the years and that she was 'very depressed'. Eventually she agreed to leave the cliff edge and was arrested. C was charged with murder and appeared before HHJ Critchlow and a jury at Guildford Crown Court in June 2011.At trial, C pleaded guilty to manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility. This was based on depression (she had first visited a doctor in 2004 after discovering her husband's infidelity and had been prescribed antidepressant medication in 2008). She did not argue the defence of provocation (subsequently abolished by the entry into force of s 56 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 in October 2010, but which was still available at the time of the killing) but HHJ Critchlow left it to the jury alongside diminished responsibility. The jury rejected both defences and C was convicted of murder. She was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum specified period of 22 years. An appeal against sentence was allowed and the minimum term was reduced to 18 years (R v Challen [2011] EWCA Crim 2919).Several years later, C appealed on the basis of fresh psychiatric evidence which had been unavailable at the time of the trial. Leave to appeal was granted in March 2018 (R v Challen [2018] EWCA Crim 471). At the appeal, it was contended that this fresh evidence suggested that C had a borderline personality disorder and a severe mood disorder (specifically, bipolar affective disorder) at the time of the killing. It was further contended that the fresh evidence rev...

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