MAGISTRATES, INSANITY AND THE COMMON-LAW

This article explores the historical and practical issues surrounding the availability of insanity defences in magistrates' courts. It sugge sts that the scope of the common law defence in summary trials may dif fer in some respects from that of the statutory verdict, and criticise s the decision in DPP v. Harper (1997) that the defence is not availab le where a strict liability offence is tried summarily.