ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the necessity, duress and mistake. The defence of necessity based on the notion is justifiable for a defendant to engage in criminal conduct to avoid a greater harm. In the defence of duress by threats, the defendant admits that he commits the actus reus of the offence with the requisite mens rea for the offence. It arises when a defendant commits an offence as a result of a threat of death or serious injury from the existing circumstances. A mistake about the law is no defence and the plea of mistake is either a denial of the mens rea or an assertion that had a defence to the crime. The chapter explains the different elements of the defence that are: a threat, threats caused by the circumstances or posed by others and threats are external. It deals with the defence of duress to the defendant who is overborne by threats to himself or another person.
