R v Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273, DC is a leading English criminal case which established a precedent throughout the common law world that necessity is not a defence to a charge of murder.

After nearly three weeks at sea, and with little hope of rescue, two of the crew, Tom Dudley and Edwin Stephens, decided that in order to save their own lives they would need to kill and eat the ship's 17-year-old cabin boy Richard Parker, who by that time had fallen seriously ill after drinking seawater.

[4] The vessel could at decent cost be transported to Australia by sailing, but its size and the 15,000-mile (24,000-km) voyage daunted attempts that year to find a suitable crew.

It left Southampton on 19 May 1884 bound for Sydney with a crew of: On 5 July, Mignonette was running before a gale, around 1,600 miles (2,600 km) northwest of the Cape of Good Hope.

Mignonette sank within five minutes of being struck and the crew abandoned ship for the lifeboat, managing only to salvage vital navigational instruments along with two tins of turnips and no fresh water.

Dudley said a prayer and, with Stephens standing by to hold the youth's legs if he struggled, pushed his penknife into Parker's jugular vein, killing him.

[15] Dudley, Stephens and Brooks were picked up by the German sailing barque Montezuma, which returned the men to Falmouth, Cornwall, England, on 6 September en route to its destination in Hamburg.

Laverty sought warrants for the men's arrest for murder on the high seas, which he obtained later that day from the mayor, Henry Liddicoat.

Local solicitor Harry Tilly appeared for the men and requested bail but after the magistrates, including Liddicoat, had consulted, they were returned to the police cells until Friday.

[22] William Otto Adolph Julius Danckwerts, a barrister of only six years' call but a specialist in wreck inquiries, was briefed for the prosecution but soon realised that public sentiment and the lack of evidence posed formidable difficulties.

When the case was heard by the magistrates at the courthouse in Falmouth on 18 September,[23] Danckwerts told the court that he intended to offer no evidence against Brooks and requested that he be discharged so that he could be called as a witness for the prosecution.

[24] Morality, ethics and legality of the taking of another's life to increase one's chance of survival have been discussed in thought experiments from the Plank of Carneades to The Case of the Speluncean Explorers.

In the early 17th century, seven Englishmen in the Caribbean embarked on an overnight voyage from Saint Christopher Island but were blown out to sea and lost for 17 days.

[25] In 1820 the surviving crew of the American whaleship Essex consumed the bodies of seven of their shipmates to stay alive; six died of starvation and exposure except for Owen Coffin, who 'lost' the lottery and was shot and eaten.

Crewmen, including seaman Alexander Holmes, believed that their overloaded lifeboat was in danger of sinking and put 14 or 16 passengers overboard far offshore in the frigid water.

Ellis consulted Attorney General of Singapore Thomas Braddell but then wrote to the Board of Trade in London that no further action was necessary and the men were free to find another ship to serve.

Singapore Governor Sir Andrew Clarke had ordered the men arrested and when he informed the Colonial Office, they insisted that he hold a judicial enquiry.

Sir William Robert Grove had initially been listed to take the assizes that session, prompting speculation that Huddleston was substituted to ensure a "safe pair of hands", with his by-reputation opinionative direction of trials.

[31] The jury was empanelled and sworn, being composed of almost the same jurors as had sat with the judge the previous day in a murder case that had resulted in the death penalty.

Dudley and Stephens pleaded not guilty; Charles opened for the prosecution, outlining the legal arguments and dismissing the defence of necessity.

He would invite, in robust terms, the jury to return a special verdict, stating only the facts of the case as they found them but giving no opinion on guilt or otherwise.

[33] Charles produced the various accounts and depositions written by the defendants and the evidence that Mignonette was registered in Britain for jurisdiction under s.267 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1854.

The judge gave them a binary decision: accept his direction to find the men guilty of murder or return a special verdict.

Without waiting for a decision, the judge produced a special verdict he had written the night before and invited the jury to indicate their assent to each paragraph as he read it out.

Collins responded by citing United States v. Holmes (1842) and discussing the various theoretical and ethical arguments in favour of a necessity defence.

After some technical legal discussion, Lord Coleridge committed Dudley and Stephens to Holloway Prison, until Tuesday, 9 December, when the court would deliver its reasons and its sentence.

It would be a very easy and cheap display of commonplace learning to quote from Greek and Latin authors, from Horace, from Juvenal, from Cicero, from Euripides, passage after passage, in which the duty of dying for others has been laid down in glowing and emphatic language as resulting from the principles of heathen ethics; it is enough in a Christian country to remind ourselves of the Great Example [Jesus Christ] whom we profess to follow.

But a man has no right to declare temptation to be an excuse, though he might himself have yielded to it, nor allow compassion for the criminal to change or weaken in any manner the legal definition of the crime.

[41] Collins still had the option of moving a writ of error to raise the very arguable issues of jurisdiction and constitution of the court but he knew that the verdict in such an important case had been decided in advance and Dudley and Stephens still anticipated an immediate release.

A memorial stone commemorating Parker is in the churchyard of Jesus Chapel on Peartree Green in Southampton, near the site of Itchen Ferry village whence he came.