## Facts

- William Anthony Morgan, an RAF noncommissioned officer, spent an evening drinking with three junior RAF men and invited them to his home to have sexual intercourse with his wife, Daphne.
- The prosecution case (accepted by the jury) was that Morgan told the men his wife was “kinky” and would “feign protest,” implying apparent resistance would not signify non-consent.
- Mrs. Morgan was awakened while in bed with her child; she was seized and taken to another bedroom, where she screamed for her children to call the police.
- She testified she never consented, resisted throughout, and was continuously restrained; her face was covered and her breathing impeded while her limbs were held.
- Each of the three younger men had intercourse with her while she was restrained; Morgan also had intercourse with her.
- Mrs. Morgan promptly fled to a hospital and reported rape; medical evidence supported injury and prompt complaint.
- The defendants’ police statements substantially corroborated the complainant’s account, but at trial they repudiated those statements and claimed she consented and participated enthusiastically after being moved to the second room.
- It was common ground on appeal that, in fact, Mrs. Morgan did not consent.

## Issues

1. Whether a defendant is guilty of rape if he honestly believed the complainant consented, even where that belief lacked reasonable grounds.
2. If the jury was misdirected by being told the belief must be reasonable, whether the convictions could still be affirmed under the “no substantial miscarriage of justice” proviso.

## Decision

- The House of Lords held that the trial judge erred by instructing the jury that an honest belief in consent must be reasonably held.
- A majority held that an honest belief in consent, if actually held, negates the mens rea for rape even if the belief is unreasonable.
- The House unanimously upheld all convictions under the statutory proviso, concluding that no properly directed reasonable jury could have accepted that any defendant genuinely believed Mrs. Morgan consented on the evidence.

## Legal Principles

- At common law, rape requires intentional intercourse with a woman who does not in fact consent, coupled with knowledge of non-consent or recklessness as to consent.
- An honestly held belief in consent negatives knowledge/recklessness and therefore negatives the mens rea for rape, even if the belief is objectively unreasonable.
- Reasonableness is not a substantive requirement of the belief, but the implausibility of a belief is relevant evidence when determining whether it was genuinely held.
- An appellate court may affirm a conviction despite legal misdirection where, on the whole of the evidence, there was no substantial miscarriage of justice because a properly directed jury would inevitably have convicted.

## Conclusion

The House of Lords ruled that an honest (even unreasonable) belief in consent defeats the mens rea of rape at common law, but nonetheless affirmed the rape and aiding-and-abetting convictions because the evidence made any genuine belief in consent untenable under the no-miscarriage proviso.


Director of Public Prosecutions v. Morgan, [1976] A.C. 182 (H.L. 1975)