ABSTRACT
In 1972 the Butler Committee embarked upon the formulation of an insanity defence suitable for the Law Commission’s Draft Criminal Code. The judge would be required not to leave to the jury unless the defence was supported by the evidence of two psychiatrists, who must be medical practitioners, approved by an area health authority as having special experience in the diagnosis or treatment of mental disorders. It is noteworthy that in the Butler formulation there is no requirement of causal connection, as the Committee thought that the disorders specified are of such severity that a causal connection can safely be presumed. The Butler Committee comment that, regarding mental subnormality, the phrase “arrested or incomplete development of mind” in section 4 of the Mental Health Act, 1959 should be wide enough to cover not only all dangerous mentally handicapped people but also persons of limited intelligence who might otherwise gain an outright acquittal.
