Where prosecution witnesses have acknowledged their own frailties of memory due to intoxication, and where conditions such as depression and anxiety are within the range of commonly experienced conditions (as distinct from conditions like schizophrenia), a general direction about the effects of alcohol on reliability is sufficient without a specific [name withheld]-type scrutiny warning. On provocation directions, the preferred formulation focuses on whether the ordinary person could form the intention to kill rather than whether the ordinary person could act as the accused did, but failure to use the preferred formulation is not fatal where the facts are straightforward.
The full text is available to signed-in members.