for the failure might be that the means adopted proved inadequate or the survivor's commitment was fragile. In either event, the trauma of involvement in such a pact was considered equivalent to a punishment and that the mandatory life sentence of murder was an inappropriate sentence for such defendants. Thus the Act provides that where the accused kills a person, or is party to a person being killed, while acting in accordance with a suicide pact, the charge will be reduced from murder to manslaughter. A 'suicide pact' is a common agreement between two or more persons providing for the death of all those persons (whether they should take their own lives or those of each other). It is a requirement of the defence that the accused herself/himself had a "settled intention of dying in pursuance of the pact". This is to avoid the accused entering into a supposed pact with the real intention of committing murder. The burden is on the accused to prove that she/he: was party to a suicide pact, and had a settled intention of dying. Part II – Liability to the death penalty Until the Homicide Act was passed, the mandatory penalty for all adults convicted of murder was death by hanging. After decades of campaigning, abolitionists secured a partial victory with the Act, which limited the circumstances in which murderers could be executed, requiring mandatory life imprisonment in all other cases. Section 5 – Capital murder This section created a new offence of capital murder. A person was guilty of this offence if he committed murder in one of five situations: Murder in the course or furtherance of theft; s.5(1)(a) Murder by shooting or by causing an explosion; s.5(1)(b) Murder in the course or for the purpose of resisting, avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest, or of effecting or assisting an escape or rescue from legal custody; s.5(1)(c) Murder of a police officer acting in the execution of his duty, or of a person assisting a police officer so acting; s.5(1)(d) Murder of a prison officer acting in the execution of his duty, or of a person assisting a prison officer so acting, by a person who was a prisoner at the time when he did or was a party to the murder; s.5(1)(e). Forms of indictment for this offence were provided by S.I. 1957/699. Section 6 – Death penalty for repeated murders This