The appellant appealed a jury conviction for second degree murder and sought leave to appeal sentence.
The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge wrongly excluded post-arrest utterances that were capable of supporting defence psychiatric evidence on cocaine intoxication and cocaine psychosis, and also erred in refusing to leave provocation with the jury because there was some evidence on which a properly instructed jury could find the partial defence.
The court rejected the argument that a later hospital statement was admissible to rebut recent fabrication, found no reversible error in the intoxication charge, and declined to interfere on motive.
The conviction was quashed and a new trial ordered, making it unnecessary to address sentence.
