R v Clegg [1995] 1 AC 482

• A British soldier while on night patrol in Northern Ireland stopped a stolen car at a vehicle checkpoint.
• The car then accelerated away in the centre of the road with its headlights on full, towards the solider and three other members on the patrol.
• Someone at the checkpoint shouted to stop the car and the soldier and his three colleagues opened fire at the approaching car.
• The driver and a rear seat passenger were killed, the passenger having been hit in the back by a bullet fired from the soldier’s rifle.
• The soldier was charged with the murder of the passenger and claimed self-defence.
• His appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed.
• The soldier then appealed to the House of Lords.

• Whether a soldier on duty who kills a person with the requisite intention for murder, but who would be entitled to rely on self-defence but for the use of excessive force is guilty of murder or manslaughter.

The House of Lords dismissed the appeal on the legal issue. Where the force used was excessive, self-defence did not provide a partial defence reducing murder to manslaughter. If the prosecution established the necessary elements of murder and no other defence applied, excessive force did not by itself change the offence.

The House considered the difficult decisions faced by soldiers but did not recognise a different general homicide rule for them. The fatal shot had been assessed on the findings made at trial; the legal question was the consequence of excessive force, not whether every shot fired during the incident was necessarily unlawful. Later procedural developments should be distinguished from this particular appellate holding.

Excessive force defeats a claim of complete self-defence and does not itself provide a partial defence reducing murder to manslaughter. Murder still requires proof of its own elements, including the necessary intention; Clegg does not make every excessive use of force murder.

Clegg is useful for separating complete self-defence from partial defences to murder. It prevents an automatic compromise verdict of manslaughter merely because some defensive response was justified but the force used was excessive. The required intention and the reasonableness of force remain separate questions. Modern problems should also be considered under the applicable statutory framework on reasonable force, without treating Clegg as a complete code for every defensive situation.