Where a woman is charged with the murder of her infant child, and upon the trial evidence is given that at the time the offence was committed the woman had not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child, the jury may convict her of manslaughter instead of murder.
§ Lords Amendment:
§
Leave out the words
is charged with the murder of her infant child, and upon the trial evidence is given that at the time the offence was committed the woman had not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child, the jury may convict her of manslaughter instead of murder.
§
and insert
by any wilful act or omission causes the death of her newly-born child, but at the time of the act or omission she had not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to such child, and by reason thereof the balance of her mind was then disturbed, she shall, notwithstanding that the circumstances were such that but for this Act the offence would hale amounted to murder, be guilty of felony, to wit of infanticide and may for such offence be dealt with and punished as if she had been guilty of the offence of manslaughter of such child.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment"— [Colonel Wedgwood.]
§ Sir F. BANBURYThis is a rather long Amendment. I gather it applies to cases where a woman, through pain or some other cause connected with the birth of a child, is not conscious of what she is doing, and that the intention is that an offence committed in such circumstances, shall not be manslaughter nor murder, but some other undefined offence. It will be rather difficult to ascertain the woman's state of mind, and this is really 2487 going back to the True case. We shall have two doctors saying on the one hand that the woman was not in a state of mind to know what she was doing, and two doctors, on the other hand, saying absolutely the reverse.
§ Colonel WEDGWOODThe point of the Amendment is that a woman in such circumstances is to be adjudged guilty of manslaughter and not of murder.
§ Sir F. BANBURYThat does not really touch the point that there might be considerable difference of opinion as to the state of the woman's mind. However, if the object is to substitute the word "manslaughter" for "murder," I do not object.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Lords Amendment:
§
At the end of the Clause insert new Sub-sections—
(2) Where upon the trial of a woman for the murder of her newly-born child, the jury are of opinion that she by any wilful act or omission caused its death, but that at the time of the act or omission she had not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to such child, and that by reason thereof the balance of her mind was then disturbed, the jury may notwithstanding that the circumstances were such that but for the provisions of this Act they might have returned a verdict of murder return in lieu thereof a verdict of infanticide.
(3) Nothing in this Act shall affect the power of the jury upon an indictment for the murder of a newly-born child to return a verdict of manslaughter, or a verdict of guilty hut insane, or a verdict of concealment of birth, in pursuance of Section sixty of the Offences against the Person Act. 1861.
(4) The said Section sixty shall apply in the case of the acquittal of a woman upon indictment for infanticide as it applies upon the acquittal of a woman for murder and upon the trial of any person over the age of sixteen for infanticide it shall he lawful for the jury if they are satisfied that the accused is guilty of an offence under Section twelve of the Children's Act, 1908 to find the accused guilty of such an offence, and m that ease that Section shall apply accordingly.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment." —[Colonel Wedgwood.
§ Sir F. BANBURYWe ought to know the meaning of the new Sub-sections.
§ Colonel WEDGWOODThey are on the Paper.
§ Sir F. BANBURYThe hon. and gallant Member in charge of the Bill should tell us what they mean.
§ Colonel WEDGWOODThis Bill was originally a one Clause Bill, drafted without the legal mind being applied to it. When it went through Committee it was modified in accordance with the common-sense views of the Home Office. When it got to the House of Lords it was taken in charge by legal experts, and a short Clause of five lines was expanded into one consisting of four Sub-sections, each containing about 12 lines, but expressing exactly the same idea as that which the Home Office accepted in Committee. I do not think it necessary to go through all this legal verbiage. I assure the right hon. Baronet we shall have plenty of opportunity for discussion on the next two Orders—discussion which will be of more interest to the general public than trying to deliberate the difference between the legal words indicating the object of this Bill and the original layman's words in which it was framed. I cannot explain the difference. I do not think anybody except a lawyer could do so, and I do not think it would he of interest to the House to discuss these subtle differences when we might be dealing with some really interesting question such as the rating of machinery or the prevention of railway fires.
§ Sir F. BANBURYI do not quite follow that line of argument. I am not concerned with what we may discuss on some other Measure. I want to know what we are doing now. A great deal of legislation is passed simply because hon. Members—and I do not blame them, because they have so many things to attend to—do not in the least know what they are doing. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw!"] I am not sure that I am any the wiser after the explanation which has been given by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. He himself says he does not know what this means, and I am sure not a single Member present knows what it means. Surely the first thing necessary, in order that we should carry out the duties imposed on us, is that we should know what we are doing. The speech of the hon. and gallant Member emphasises what I said on another Amendment, for according to the hon. and gallant Gentleman what has 2489 taken place is this. Common sense, represented by the hon. and gallant Gentleman and the Home Office, brought in a Bill, and in this House common sense alone acted, but when the Bill got to another place, acuter minds dealing with the legal question entirely altered the common sense of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, because they put into four Clauses what he had endeavoured to put into one. The answer to that is, that in all probability his one Clause would not have been interpreted in a court of law except in various different ways, and the result would have been that there would have been a large amount of money spent in fees for counsel learned in the law, whereas the legal authorities in another place, being anxious to save money and to prevent His Majesty's subjects being put to unnecessary expense, put the Bill into such a form that it would be understood when it came, if it should ever come, before a court of law. I am much obliged to the hon. and gallant Member for his speech, but I must still ask him very shortly to explain the actual Amendments with which he is going to move to agree. The position of a leader of a party entails responsibility, and therefore I ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman to accept the responsibility which has been thrust upon him.
§ Question put, and agreed to.