UK Court Enforces Contract to Kill

Is a contract to kill enforceable?  The UK Times Online reports that a Maidstone Crown Court held that a contract to kill is enforceable, at least in this scenario:

Christine Ryder, 53, met [Kevin] Reeves[, 40,] when both were being treated for mental health problems at Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham, Kent, in 2003. Mrs Ryder, from nearby Strood, had been admitted after attempting suicide. She formed a friendship with Reeves and told him that she was depressed and desperate to end her life. Could he find her a hitman? Reeves, from Snodland, near Rochester, made a telephone call and told her that he could get a professional killer for £2,500.

Nothing happened.

After they left hospital she contacted Reeves and repeated her request. The price, Reeves told her, had gone up to £5,000. She wrote him a cheque.

Reeves banked the money and told Mrs Ryder that she would be killed in a drive-by shooting on June 11, 2003. She wasn’t; Reeves telephoned her to cancel the arrangement, saying that he had had to kill the hitman himself and pay Mrs Ryder’s money to his widow, the court was told.

Mrs Ryder, growing increasingly keen to depart this life, asked Reeves if he would do the deed himself. Reeves agreed, but said it would cost her another £10,000; she wrote him another cheque. But then she lost contact with him for some time. When he eventually contacted Mrs Ryder, he claimed that her £10,000 had been seized by his bank because he was bankrupt, but he could still kill her if she gave him another £10,000. She refused but agreed to pay him £5,000; Reeves promised to kill her on November 28.

The day before the promised killing, Mrs Ryder received a letter from Reeves saying that the situation had changed, but “things are still on, so don’t panic”. At the end of the appointed day Mrs Ryder was still alive.

Fiona Moore-Graham, for the prosecution, told the court that once again there was a period of no contact, largely because Reeves had taken his wife, Jean, on an expensive holiday to Tenerife. “You may think, therefore, that there was no intention of killing Mrs Ryder on November 28.”

Ever more frustrated at being still alive, Mrs Ryder contacted Reeves’s wife, who said that her husband had told her that his windfall had come from a lottery scratch card, a maturing insurance policy and an Isa. “He simply had the money for his own purpose and had no intention of using it for the purpose she directed: to have her killed or kill her himself,” Ms Moore-Graham told the jury.

Steven Hadley, for the defence, conceded: “It is a mean offence, preying on somebody who is vulnerable.”

Ryder sued for breach of contract.  A jury found Reeves “guilty of deception.”  Reeves was imprisoned for 15 months, but could not be prosecuted for murder or manslaughter because he never attempted anything.  The court ordered Reeves to repay £2,000 to Ryder.

Should this contract be void as against public policy?  If the contract is void, is the result (Reeves keeping all the money) fair?  Or, was Ryder’s theory really a straight fraud claim, independent of whether the contract itself was enforceable?

[Meredith R. Miller]