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8 Medico-Legal & Criminological Rev. 1 (1940)

handle is hein.journals/medlgjr8 and id is 1 raw text is: THE MEDICO-LEGAL AND CRIMINOLOGICAL REVIEW Vol. VIII. January, 1940 No. i COMMON GROUND Under this heading the Editors comment on matters of interest to both professions. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Society. INSANITY AS A DEFENCE IN DIVORCE INSANITY has been raised in earlier years as a defence to a petition for judicial separation on the ground of cruelty or desertion. Since those offences are now grounds for divorce, the courts have recently had to deal with insanity as a defence to a divorce petition. In Astle v. Astle* the husband made several homicidal assaults on his wife very soon after the marriage and was certified insane. During a period of release on parole he told his wife that he had decided to kill her and himself, and later on, after his discharge, he went to the house where she was living with her family and threatened her with death. He was afterwards certified again, and his wife petitioned for divorce on the ground of cruelty. His advisers pleaded that he was insane at the time and therefore not responsible. Mr. Justice Henn Collins said that the same standard of responsibility must apply in the Divorce Division as in other courts, and that intention is a necessary ingredient of the matrimonial offence of cruelty. As, however, often happens in this country, he was able to mitigate the harshness of this rule of law by granting the petition on other grounds. Although the husband had committed numerous acts of cruelty for which his mental disorder made him not responsible, he had committed one during his period of discharge when there was no reason to suppose he was irresponsible. That act might not have been sufficient ground for a divorce petition in itself, but viewed in the light of the wife's previous experiences it acquired a much greater significance. The * 1939, 3 All E.R. 967.

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