Olivia Labinjo-Halcrow Conviction for Manslaughter Quashed

A Birmingham woman jailed for killing her partner has had her manslaughter conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal. Gary Cunningham was stabbed 12 times with a kitchen knife and bled to death in a block of flats in Harborne, Birmingham, on 23 February last year. Olivia Labinjo-Halcrow was acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and jailed for 18 years.

Three Appeal Court judges ruled her conviction was unsafe. They said the judge at the trial at Birmingham Crown Court last August had given jurors a direction relating to whether evidence demonstrated Ms Labinjo-Halcrow had been physically and sexually assaulted by 29-year-old Mr Cunningham. The judges – Lady Justice Macur, Mr Justice Nicklin and Judge Gregory Dickinson – said that direction was “fundamentally wrong in law” as it had transferring the “evidential burden” to the defence.

In a written ruling Lady Justice Macur said the relationship between Ms Labinjo-Halcrow and Mr Cunningham had been “volatile and tempestuous”. Ms Labinjo-Halcrow had said she had “no memory” of stabbing Mr Cunningham, but, “accepting it was likely she had done so”, she would have been “acting in self-defence or acting with diminished responsibility or in loss of control”, said Lady Justice Macur.

BBC News, https://is.gd/iDGKIE