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Woolmington V DPP

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77 views

Woolmington V DPP

Case notes

Uploaded by

murungimarvin98
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Woolmington v DPP

Woolmington v DPP [1935] UKHL 1 is a famous House it said that if a death occurred, it is presumed to be murder
of Lords case in English law, where the presumption of unless proved otherwise.
innocence was first articulated in the Commonwealth.
In articulating the ruling, Lord Sankey made his famous
“Golden thread” speech:

1 History “Throughout the web of the English Criminal


Law one golden thread is always to be seen that
Reginald Woolmington was a 21-year-old farm labourer it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the pris-
from Castleton, Dorset. On November 22, 1934, three oner’s guilt subject to... the defence of insanity
months after his marriage to 17-year-old Violet Kath- and subject also to any statutory exception. If,
leen Woolmington, his wife left him and went to live at the end of and on the whole of the case, there
with her mother. On December 10 Woolmington stole is a reasonable doubt, created by the evidence
a double-barrelled shotgun and cartridges from his em- given by either the prosecution or the prisoner...
ployer, sawed off the barrel, throwing it into a brook, and the prosecution has not made out the case and
then bicycled over to his mother-in-law’s house where he the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal. No matter
shot and killed Violet. He was arrested on January 23 the what the charge or where the trial, the principle
following year and charged with the wilful murder of his that the prosecution must prove the guilt of the
wife. prisoner is part of the common law of England
Woolmington claimed he did not intend to kill her. He and no attempt to whittle it down can be enter-
wanted to win her back so he planned to scare her by tained.”
threatening to kill himself if she did not come back.
While questioning her about returning, he attempted to The conviction was overturned, and Woolmington was
show her the gun that he was to use to kill himself. By acquitted. He was released three days before his sched-
accident, the gun went off shooting Violet in the heart. uled execution date.
The Trial judge ruled that the case was so strong against
Woolmington that the burden of proof was on him to
show that the shooting was accidental. At trial the jury de- 3 External links
liberated for 69 minutes. On February 14, 1935 Woolm-
ington was convicted and sentenced to death. • Full Law Report from Justis
On appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal, Woolm- • Woolmington v DPP [1935] UKHL 1 (23 May
ington argued that the Trial judge misdirected the jury. 1935), House of Lords from BAILII
The appeal judge discounted the argument using the
common-law precedent as stated in Foster’s Crown Law
(1762).

In every charge of murder, the fact of killing


being first proved, all the circumstances of acci-
dent, necessity, or infirmity are to be satisfacto-
rily proved by the prisoner, unless they arise out
of the evidence produced against him; for the
law presumeth the fact to have been founded in
malice, unless the contrary appeareth....

2 Judgment
The issue brought to the House of Lords was whether the
statement of law in Foster’s Crown Law was correct when

1
2 4 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

4 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses


4.1 Text
• Woolmington v DPP Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolmington_v_DPP?oldid=636514176 Contributors: The Anome, Phil
Boswell, Chrism, Enochlau, Icairns, Bobo192, Wikidea, Saga City, PullUpYourSocks, BD2412, Tim!, Kynik, Mais oui!, SmackBot, Izehar,
Mr Stephen, CmdrObot, Cydebot, ClueBot, Paul.r.3, Bilsonius, Good Olfactory, THEN WHO WAS PHONE?, James500, Yeoheadclerk,
Moonraker, , Legalskeptic, Fæ, Sonicyouth86, Wind feng88 and Anonymous: 19

4.2 Images

4.3 Content license


• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

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