Necessity

NECESSITY

The defence of necessity may be used to defend against a charge of a criminal offence in circumstances where the criminal offence must have been done in order to avoid certain consequences which would have inflicted irreparable evil upon you or upon others whom you were bound to protect.

There must be a genuine belief of necessity and the act must not be disproportionate to the harm that you were seeking to prevent happening.

An example of the defence of necessity is speeding to get a seriously injured family member to hospital so that they do not die.

The burden of proof for the defence of necessity is on the accused to establish it on the balance of probabilities.