Court case(1884) 14 QBD 273

Four sailors were cast adrift in a lifeboat after a shipwreck. After many days without food and water, Dudley and Stephens killed the cabin boy, Richard Parker, who was the weakest, and the three survivors ate his flesh until they were rescued.

The court held that necessity is no defence to murder. A man has no right to take the life of an innocent person to preserve his own; to allow such a defence would be to make the strong the judges of who should die. The accused were convicted, though the sentence of death was commuted to six months' imprisonment.