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G was charged with being a party, together with her spouse, L, to the murder of their three children at the dawn of the year 2009. According to the Crown’s theory, G was a party to the murder in planning it as part of a murder‑suicide pact and in supplying the murder weapon. She did not act to prevent the children from being poisoned with drinks served by her spouse, which contained Gravol and oxazepam. Thus, she aided L to kill the children. At her jury trial, G submitted in her defence that she had not bought the medication to poison her children, that she was in a dissociative state on December 31, 2008 when she wrote some incriminating documents, and that this state meant she could not have formed the specific intent to commit the murders. In the alternative, should her argument based on the absence of mens rea be rejected, she claimed to have abandoned the common purpose of killing the children and to have clearly communicated her intention to do so to her spouse. The jury found G guilty of the first degree murder of her three children. The Court of Appeal upheld the guilty verdict, concluding that the trial judge had not erred in refusing to put the defence of abandonment to the jury, since it was incompatible with the defence’s principal theory.
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