Holmes v. Director of Public Prosecutions

After a night out, Holmes (defendant) got into a violent argument with his wife that escalated when she admitted infidelity and suggested he had been unfaithful too; Holmes testified he lost his temper, struck her with a hammer, and then strangled her to end her suffering, admitting on cross-examination that he intended to kill her. The trial judge instructed the jury that the wife's verbal admission of infidelity could not, as a matter of law, amount to sufficient provocation to reduce the offense from murder to manslaughter, and Holmes was convicted of murder; his conviction was affirmed on appeal, and he appealed further to the House of Lords.