Section 186Part 6 — Offences Against the Person
Provocation
←→ Navigate · Click subsection badges to collapse · Press ? for help
186. Where on a charge of murder there is evidence on which the jury can find that the person charged was provoked (whether by things done or things said or by both together) to lose their self-control, the question whether the provocation was enough to make a reasonable person do as that person did shall be left to be determined by the jury; and in determining that question the jury shall take into account everything both done and said according to the effect which in their opinion it would have on a reasonable person. 186A. Suicide to cease to be a crime 186A.The rule of law whereby it is a crime for a person to commit suicide is abrogated. 186B. Criminal liability for complicity in a person’s suicide 186B.(1) A person commits an offence if —
that person does an act capable of encouraging or assisting the suicide or attempted suicide of another person; and
that person’s act was intended to encourage or assist the suicide or an attempt at the suicide.
A person may commit an offence under this section whether or not a suicide, or an attempt at suicide, occurs.
An offence under this section is triable on indictment and a person convicted of such an offence is liable to imprisonment for a term of fourteen years.
If on the trial of an indictment for murder or manslaughter of a person it is proved that the deceased person committed suicide, and the person accused committed an offence under subsection (1) in relation to that suicide, the person accused may be convicted of the offence under subsection (1).
No proceedings shall be instituted for an offence under this section except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
If a person arranges for another person to do an act that is capable of encouraging or assisting the suicide or attempted suicide of a third person and that other person does that act, the person who arranged with that other person is also to be treated for the purposes of this Act as having done the act. Section 187 Penal Code (2026 Revision) Page 80 Revised as at 31st December, 2025 c
Where the facts are such that an act is not capable of encouraging or assisting suicide or attempted suicide, for the purposes of this Act the act is to be treated as so capable if the act would have been so capable had the facts been as the person believed them to be at the time of the act or had subsequent events happened in the manner the person believed they would happen, or both.
A reference in this Act to a person doing an act that is capable of encouraging the suicide or attempted suicide of another person includes a reference to that person doing so by threatening another person or otherwise putting pressure on another person to commit or attempt suicide.
Defined Terms
provocation