Antoine v. the United Kingdom (dec.)

Information Note on the Court’s case-law 53

May 2003

Antoine v. the United Kingdom (dec.) - 62960/00

Decision 13.5.2003 [Section IV]

Article 6

Criminal proceedings

Article 6-1

Criminal charge

Nature of proceedings instituted following establishment of unfitness to plead: inadmissible

The applicant was arrested in 1995 in connection with the ritual killing of a 15 year-old boy. He himself was 16 at the time. He and another youth were charged with murder. His co-accused entered a guilty plea to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility and was sentenced to committal to a mental hospital without limit of time. At the applicant’s trial, three psychiatrists testified that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. The trial judge directed the jury to find that, in light of his mental disability, the applicant was unfit to plead or stand trial. A new jury was empanelled to determine whether, in accordance with the applicable legislation on insanity, the applicant did the act with which he was charged (a “section 4A” hearing). The procedure followed was akin to that of a criminal trial. The jury found that the applicant had committed the act, a finding which enabled the judge to commit him to a mental hospital without limit of time. The applicant appealed. In 2000, the House of Lords held that in such cases the prosecution only had to prove the actus reus and not the mens rea. Moreover, in a section 4A hearing, the defence of diminished responsibility was not available. Criminal proceedings against the applicant are currently stayed indefinitely. The Crown Prosecution Service’s intention is to revive them, should the applicant recover at any time in the future.

Inadmissible under Article 6 § 1: The applicant’s trial came to an end with the jury’s finding that he was unfit to plead or stand trial. The purpose of the section 4A hearing was to establish whether the applicant had carried out the act charged as murder against him. He could have been acquitted of the charge, but, in view of his unfitness to plead, no conviction was possible. These proceedings did not therefore concern the determination of a criminal charge. The fact that an acquittal was possible was to be regarded as a mechanism for protecting an applicant wrongly accused of participation in a purported offence. More decisive for establishing the inapplicability of Article 6 § 1 were the impossibility of conviction and the lack of punitive sanctions, a hospital order being neither a measure of retribution or deterrence. Although the section 4A hearing bore strong similarities to a criminal trial, it concerned the actus reus only and its essential purpose was to protect the public. The procedures employed struck a fair balance between that purpose and the need to protect a person who had in fact done nothing wrong: incompatible ratione materiae.

As for the applicant’s alternative argument that the criminal proceedings brought against him in 1997 were still pending and therefore of excessive duration, these proceedings were for practical purposes terminated with the finding of his unfitness to plead. While the Secretary of State could re-institute proceedings at a future date in the event of the applicant’s recovery, the charge could not be considered as pending in the meantime: manifestly ill-founded.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes

Full & Egal Universal Law Academy