ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the provocation defence has been abolished in several Australian jurisdictions. In others it has been severely restricted, for example, in England and Wales where reformers took the unusual step of abolishing provocation as a defence but replacing it with a loss of control defence that expressly excludes sexual infidelity as a trigger for loss of control. The chapter provides an analysis of post-reform intimate partner femicides committed in England and Wales. Over the centuries English courts have waxed and waned in their approach to wife-killing – intimate partner femicide – clamping down heavily on defendants in some periods, showing mercy in others. But what has not been fully recognised is that the Homicide Act expansion of the provocation defence to include provocation by the victim's words or deeds ushered in a golden age for wife-killers. With provocation by sexual infidelity off the table as a defence, defendants opted for a diminished responsibility defence, almost all without success.
