In 1925, Parliament abolished the old common law rule that an offence committed by a wife in the presence of her husband is committed under the coercion of the husband. However, it was replaced with a statutory defence that “on a charge against a wife for any offence other than treason or murder it shall be a good defence to prove that the offence was committed in the presence of, and under the coercion of, the husband”.
This defence was not open to husbands coerced by wives, or to unmarried women (still less to anyone in a civil partnership). Lawyers even disagreed on whether the burden of proof for invoking this defence was on the defence or the onus was on the prosecution to disprove. In this trial, the judge ruled that the onus was on the prosecution to disprove. But the wider issue remains: should this (undoubtedly discriminatory) defence even exist at all, when there is also a general (but less generous) defence of duress in English criminal law.
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