Loss of Self-Control

This chapter explores the limitations and laxity of the former law on provocation and the extent to which these limitations have been addressed and laxity curtailed in these new provisions. However, since the claimed reason for his lowered capacity for self-control was separate from the source of the provocation, the fact of this disjuncture was of relevance to whether it could be considered. Anger has been subjected historically to the most detailed scrutiny because of the acts of violence to which anger leads. Indeed, Lord Taylor comprehended for the battered woman an alternate state of mind that could lead to loss of self-control. The framing of the construct of reasonableness persists in the cognizance of a typified objective standard of what can be legitimately feared. A fear killing following on from serious violence or anticipation of serious violence contains some of the characteristics of self-defence but without the requirement of immediacy.