1. Introduction
Field v R (R v. Benjamin Field [2026] EWCA Crim 413, 16 April 2026) is the third judgment of the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) arising from the appellant’s conviction for the murder of PF (the deceased), following a complex trial involving allegations of exploitation, covert drugging, and an alleged plan to cause death so it would appear consistent with alcohol misuse.
The appeal came before the Court on a Criminal Cases Review Commission (“CCRC”) reference under the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, focused on a narrow but fundamental issue:
whether the jury were misdirected on causation—specifically, whether PF’s voluntary act of drinking could (or could not) break the chain of causation for murder.
The case also raised a significant procedural issue: how stare decisis and finality principles operate when the CCRC refers a case under section 13(2) (exceptional circumstances) even though the Court of Appeal has already dismissed an earlier appeal on the same issue.
3. Analysis
3.1. Precedents Cited and Their Influence
(a) Stare decisis and re-litigation in the CACD
The Court’s starting point was the ordinary rule that the CACD is bound by its own prior decisions subject to limited exceptions. It relied on the synthesis in
R v Hayes (Tom) and R v Palombo (Carlo) [2024] EWCA Crim 304; [2024] 2 Cr. App. R. 6 (“Hayes & Palombo”), which in turn drew on:
R. v Taylor (1950) 34 Cr. App. R. 138; [1950] 2 K.B. 368,
R. v Gould (1968) 52 Cr. App. R. 152; [1968] 2 Q.B. 65,
R. v Spencer (1985) 80 Cr. App. R. 264; [1984] 1 Q.B. 771,
R. v Simpson [2003] 2 Cr. App. R. 36; [2004] Q.B. 118,
R. v Magro [2010] 2 Cr. App. R. 25; [2011] Q.B. 398,
R. v Barton [2020] 2 Cr. App. R. 7; [2021] Q.B. 685,
R. v Bermingham and Palombo [2021] 1 Cr. App. R. 24; [2021] 4 W.L.R. 113, and
R. v Layden [2023] EWCA Crim 1207; [2024] 1 Cr. App. R. 6,
while acknowledging the civil exceptions in Young v Bristol Aeroplane Ltd [1944] K.B. 718.
Crucially, however, the Court treated the present posture as different: Parliament has created a mechanism in section 13(2) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 permitting a reference despite the absence of new argument/evidence, where “exceptional circumstances” justify it. That statutory scheme would be undermined if the CACD treated itself as strictly bound to refuse reconsideration merely because the same point was previously decided against the appellant. The Court therefore suggested the “exceptions” list should be extended to include section 13(2) references, and emphasised that:
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a CCRC reference is treated as an appeal by virtue of section 9(2) of the 1995 Act; and
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the CrimPR 36.15 “reopening” constraints are not to be transposed into the section 13(2) appeal process.
The Court’s approach also aligned with the policy discussion in [2022] EWCA Crim 316 (“CACD Judgment 2”), which had pointed the appellant towards the CCRC route rather than using reopening as a “second go”.
(b) Causation and autonomy: Kennedy (No 2) as the controlling authority
On the merits, the case turned on the “FDI” principle—whether an intervening act is free, deliberate and informed such that it breaks the chain of causation.
The Court treated R v Kennedy (No 2) [2007] UKHL 38; [2008] 1 AC 269 (“Kennedy (No 2)”) as controlling, focusing particularly on Lord Bingham’s articulation of autonomy:
informed adults of sound mind are treated as autonomous decision-makers; a defendant does not “cause” a victim to act where the victim makes a voluntary and informed decision.
The Court also drew support for the context-sensitivity of causation from:
R. v Hughes [2013] UKSC 56; [2014] 1 Cr. App. R. 6 (p.46),
while maintaining that context-sensitivity cannot be used to contradict the binding rule in Kennedy (No 2).
(c) The contested line of Court of Appeal authority: Wallace and beyond
The judgment directly engaged with the controversy surrounding causation where the victim’s act is influenced by the defendant’s conduct, including:
R. v Wallace [2018] EWCA Crim 690; [2018] 2 Cr. App. R. 22,
and the Court’s own observation that the Supreme Court might need to consider Kennedy (No 2) in light of decisions including
R v Rebelo [2021] EWCA Crim 306; [2021] 2 Cr App R 3.
Academic criticism (notably by Professor Simester and in Smith, Hogan and Ormerod’s Criminal Law) was summarised: that Wallace and CACD Judgment 1 “eroded” voluntariness to expand homicide liability in ways inconsistent with Kennedy (No 2). The Court accepted the essence of that criticism in relation to CACD Judgment 1.
(d) “Consent by deception” in sexual offences: explicitly not imported
The CCRC reference included a proposed analogy with “consent procured by deception” in sexual cases, citing:
Papadimitropoulos v The Queen (1957) 98 CLR 249,
R v Linekar [1995] Q.B. 250,
Assange v Sweden [2011] EWHC 2849 (Admin),
R (Monica) v DPP [2019] Q.B. 1019, and
R v Lawrance [2020] 1 W.L.R. 5025.
The Court rejected the utility of importing this contested body of law into homicide causation, emphasising that the jury had not been asked to decide a direct causal link between any deception and the decision to drink.
(e) Extensions of time and “change in law” cases
Although not determinative on the facts (because this was not a “change in law” since conviction), the Court referenced
R. v Cotterell [2008] 1 Cr. App. R. 7
to illustrate the general emphasis on finality and “substantial injustice”, and noted the potential relevance of section 16C of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 in other contexts.
3.2. Legal Reasoning
(a) The core misstep: treating concealed intention as making the victim’s act “uninformed”
The earlier reasoning (CACD Judgment 1) upheld the conviction on the basis that PF’s act of drinking was not “free, voluntary and informed” because PF did not know the appellant’s intention to kill. The present Court held that this is not a permissible application of Kennedy (No 2).
Kennedy (No 2) treats an informed adult’s voluntary self-administration as breaking causation; the information deficit that matters is not simply ignorance of another’s internal purpose. The Court stressed the absence of evidence that PF was deceived into drinking by a representation bearing on the nature of the act (as opposed to the relationship context), and the absence of a jury direction requiring a finding of a causal link between deception and consumption.
(b) The “weak swimmer” analogy as an unstable foundation
CACD Judgment 1 relied heavily on a “weak swimmer” analogy: the victim takes a risk believing rescue will be provided, while the defendant secretly intends not to rescue. The present Court found the analogy inapt on the evidence: PF drank whisky frequently; there was no evidential basis to say he drank because he believed he would be protected from danger by the appellant or that the “nature of the undertaking” had been altered in a legally relevant way.
In short, the concealed intention analysis “circumnavigated” the administration/self-administration distinction central to Kennedy (No 2), without identifying a lawful doctrinal bridge.
(c) Jury-function error: withdrawing the decisive factual issue
Even if (contrary to the Court’s conclusion) concealed intention could sometimes affect “informed” autonomy, the Court held that this case still failed because the directions did not leave the relevant fact-question to the jury.
The written direction told the jury that if the appellant gave drink with intent to kill, then “even if [PF] agreed to drink it” it was open to treat that as causing death unless PF knew it was intended to cause death.
That framing effectively removed from the jury the contested question whether PF’s choice could break causation—precisely the issue on which liability would turn once the jury rejected the appellant’s “not present” account.
The Court reinforced the need to distinguish issues of law from issues of fact by reference to the Supreme Court’s treatment of jury-factfinding in [2025] UKSC 29; [2025] 2 Cr. App. R. 21 (the Supreme Court decision in Hayes & Palombo).
(d) Structural defects: “and/or” directions and mismatch with pathology
The Court identified a further independent basis of unsafety: the “and/or” formulation across alcohol, Dalmane and smothering blurred distinct causal pathways and legal considerations.
In particular:
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The pathology evidence supported death by the combination of alcohol and Dalmane; there was no positive pathological evidence of smothering.
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The route to verdict allowed conviction on alcohol alone, Dalmane alone, smothering alone, or any combination, without clear directions tethering each route to evidence and the relevant causation principles.
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The jury asked about whisky; the judge’s answer remained framed by “and/or”, while focusing on alcohol as a standalone cause, without a structured direction about how Dalmane was ingested (covert administration versus voluntary ingestion) and how that affected causation.
The Court noted that a “straightforward” murder route could have been put had the jury been required to decide whether Dalmane was covertly administered (which would have avoided the Kennedy (No 2) difficulty), but that was not how the case was left.
3.3. Impact
(a) Procedural impact: CCRC section 13(2) references and precedent
The judgment clarifies that where the CCRC refers a conviction under section 13(2), the CACD must determine safety on the merits and should not treat itself as procedurally barred by:
(i) the prior CACD decision in the same case, or
(ii) the CrimPR 36.15 “reopening” gateway.
This strengthens the distinct constitutional role Parliament gave the CCRC in exceptional-circumstance cases: the reference is not merely a re-run but a statutory mechanism for revisiting finality when justice requires.
(b) Substantive impact: limiting “deception” as a route around Kennedy (No 2)
Substantively, the decision resists an expansionary approach to homicide causation where the victim’s act is voluntary but undertaken in ignorance of the defendant’s private intention.
Unless the prosecution can prove something closer to:
(i) administration (in the Kennedy sense), or
(ii) a legally recognised vitiating factor (duress, vulnerability, deception as to the nature of the act) tied by evidence to the victim’s decision,
concealed intention alone will not readily defeat the “FDI” autonomy analysis.
(c) Practical impact: directions, routes to verdict, and multi-mechanism causation
The judgment is also a cautionary guide on:
avoiding “and/or” formulations that allow conviction on evidentially unsupported or legally unanalysed routes; and ensuring that where different alleged mechanisms raise different causation questions (e.g., self-administration versus covert administration; physical smothering), the jury is given a structured, mechanism-specific route to verdict.
(d) Forward look: Supreme Court clarification
By certifying a point of law and granting leave, the Court signalled that the boundary between Kennedy (No 2) autonomy and the developing Court of Appeal line (including Wallace and cases involving suicide or exploitation dynamics) is now of systemic importance. The retrial direction remains subject to the Supreme Court’s resolution of the certified issue(s).