R v Dudley and Stephens

"Edwin Stephens" redirects here. For the American publisher, see Edwin William Stephens.

R v Dudley and Stephens
Sketch of the Mignonette by Tom Dudley
CourtHigh Court of Justice (Queen's Bench Division)
Full case name Her Majesty The Queen v Tom Dudley and Edwin Stephens
Decided9 December 1884
Citations
  • [1884] EWHC 2 (QB)
  • (1884) 14 QBD 273 (DC)
  • 49 JP 69
  • 54 LJMC 32
  • 15 Cox CC 624
  • 33 WR 437
  • [1881–1885] All ER Rep 61
  • 52 LT 107
  • 1 TLR 118[1]
Case history
Prior actionFinding of the facts only: jury trial at Exeter Assizes
Subsequent actionnone
Court membership
Judges sitting
Case opinions
Lord Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice
Keywords
  • Murder
  • Killing and eating flesh of human being under pressure of hunger
  • Necessity
  • Special verdict
  • Certiorari
  • Offence on the high seas
  • Jurisdiction of the High Court
[2]

R v Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273, DC is a leading English criminal case which established a precedent throughout the common law world that necessity is not a defence to a charge of murder. The case concerned survival cannibalism following a shipwreck, and its purported justification on the basis of a custom of the sea.[3]

The four-man crew of the wrecked yacht Mignonette were cast adrift in a small lifeboat without provisions. After nearly three weeks at sea, and with little hope of rescue, two of the crew, Tom Dudley and Edwin Stephens, decided that in order to save their own lives they would need to kill and eat the ship's 17-year-old cabin boy Richard Parker, who by that time had fallen seriously ill after drinking seawater. The defendants were found guilty and were sentenced to the statutory death penalty, though with a recommendation of mercy. They were released soon after the conviction.

The case marked the culmination of a long history of attempts by the law, in the face of a bank of public opinion sympathetic to famished castaways, to outlaw the custom of cannibalism (cases of which were little-publicised until after the death of perpetrators) and it became a legal cause célèbre in late 19th century Britain, particularly among mariners.

  1. ^ Card, Cross and Jones: Criminal Law 16th Ed., Prof. Richard Card (ed.), Reed Elsevier (printed by CPI Bath, Bath, UK), 2004. at Table of Cases, Liii
  2. ^ Index card – Incorporated Council of Law Reporting
  3. ^ Walker, Andrew: Is Eating People Wrong?: Great Legal Cases and How they Shaped the World. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2011 ISBN 978-1-107-00037-7 p. 22