Neighbour killer wins case review

Neighbour killer wins case review

A man who killed his neighbour during a row over a barking puppy has won a High Court ruling that his case should be reconsidered.

Nicholas Farnell, 41, was jailed for life in 1996 for using a crowbar to murder William Pottage, his 56-year-old neighbour in Elgar Walk, Waterlooville, Hampshire.

Farnell always admitted the killing but his defence was that he had been suffering from an "abnormality of mind".

On Tuesday, Mr Justice Mitchell and Mr Justice Maurice Kay ordered the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) should reconsider its 2002 decision not to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.

Provocation 'an issue'

Mr Justice Mitchell said the trial jury should have been told that "provocation" was an issue in the case, on which a verdict of manslaughter could have been found.

The judge said: "In this case the jury were given a half-hearted direction on provocation which did no more than pay lip service to the issue."

The jury was never invited to consider evidence of Farnell, a roofer, suffering from a depressive illness and its relevance to the issue of provocation.

Farnell's "bad temper" on the occasion he attacked his neighbour may have been explicable on the basis of this illness, said the judge.

The commission had failed to recognise the shortcomings in the directions given to the jury.

Farnell had always been willing to admit manslaughter but the prosecution had pressed ahead with the murder charge.

If the case is allowed to go to the Court of Appeal, Farnell's lawyers have indicated they will also rely on fresh psychiatric evidence as to his mental state at the time.