So if a man stabs his wife four times it's not actually murder if she's leaving him fir another man

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It's manslaughter apparently. The poor husband snaps, reaches for a knife and sticks it into her 4 times but isn't found guilty of murder because y'know what's a man to do when he knows his missus has got another chap?

Daily Mail link because my iPad is crashing on other newspapers.

And he'll probably be out in less than 8 years

Firstly a belated thanks for the nice comments up thread.

On the question of doubt, Lweji has it absolutely right. It is up to the prosecution to prove their case. This is sometimes described as the "golden thread" that runs through English justice. For those interested the phrase "golden thread" was coined in a 1930s case that I'm sure would have drawn comment on Mumsnet if it had existed back then.

A young farm labourer's wife had left him and returned to her mother just 3 months after the wedding. He stole a shotgun, sawed off the barrel and cycled to his mother-in-law's house where he shot and killed his wife. He was charged with murder. He claimed that he was trying to scare her by threatening to kill himself if she did not return and that he was trying to show her the gun he was going to use when it went off by accident. The trial judge told the jury if a death occurred it was presumed to be murder unless proved otherwise and that therefore it was up to the defence to prove it was an accident. The labourer was convicted and sentenced to death. He appealed, arguing that the trial judge's direction to the jury was wrong. The Court of Appeal refused the accused's appeal. It then went to the House of Lords which quashed the conviction. As part of the judgement Lord Sankey said:

"Throughout the web of the English Criminal Law one golden thread is always to be seen that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt subject to... the defence of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception. If, at the end of and on the whole of the case, there is a reasonable doubt, created by the evidence given by either the prosecution or the prisoner... the prosecution has not made out the case and the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal. No matter what the charge or where the trial, the principle that the prosecution must prove the guilt of the prisoner is part of the common law of England and no attempt to whittle it down can be entertained."

But I thought the partial defences were an exception to some extent prh? (made by statute as per the quote above) In the old days IIRC it was quite a full reversed burden of proof to be proved by the defence on the balance of probabilities. I'm not fully up to speed on the new statutory defences - it seems to be a lighter burden but there's still some requirement for the defence to raise a credible possibility - they can't just ask the prosecution to prove the absence of DR or LOC beyond reasonable doubt for every murderer.

The prosecution has to prove its case but it doesn't have to prove it beyond any doubt, just beyond reasonable doubt (although the courts prefer not to use that phrase these days).

If the defendant simply says, "she told me she'd been unfaithful and I lost control and killed her" that is unlikely to be enough to raise reasonable doubt. There would need to be enough evidence for a reasonable person to believe that the victim might have behaved in the way described, that the behaviour constituted a qualifying trigger and that the defendant might have lost control in those circumstances. The defence don't have to prove any of those things but they do have to put forward enough evidence to raise a reasonable doubt.