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20 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
- 3rd side (hint)
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Actus reus Elements of a crime Lord Mackay |
Adomoko(1994) |
Defendant, an anaesthetist, was in charge of a patient during an eye operation. During the procedure an oxygen pipe became disconnected and caused the patient to suffer a heart attack and die. Experts testified that the defendant’s failure to notice the disconnection was 'abysmal '. He was convicted by the jury of gross negligence manslaughter. House of Lords upheld his conviction and clarified the elements required for gross negligence manslaughter: (1) existence of a duty of care (2) breach of that duty of care which causes death (3) gross negligence which jury considers justifies criminal liability (4) the gross negligence was a substantial cause of the death of the victim. , Lord Mackay said the ordinary principles of negligence in civil law should apply when determining if a duty of care existed and whether it was breached. |
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Actus reus Voluntarily taken on |
Stone and Dobinson (1977) |
Defendants allowed a relative to live with them. She became ill and unable to care for herself and died. Defendants had assumed some responsibility and so had a duty of care towards the victim. Defendants were convicted of manslaughter through failing to care for her or summon help when she became helpless |
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Actus reus duty of care contractual duty |
Litchfeild (1998) |
Defendant was owner and master of a ship which crashed in Cornwall and three crew members died. Defendant owed the crew a duty of care, through contract. Defendant had breached this duty as he had steered an unsafe course and relied on the engines when he knew that they might fail. Defendant was found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter. |
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Actus reus duty of care complicity in a crime |
Wacker (2002) |
Defendant was a lorry driver was involved in a criminal conspiracy to bring illegal immigrants into the UK. The lorry was airtight, with a vent that could be opened to allow air to enter. Defendant closed the vent for hours in an attempt to avoid detection. 58 people were found dead due to suffocation. Defendant was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter. Defendant argued, in line with civil rules, he did not owe a duty of care to the victims as they were carrying out a joint unlawful activity. Court of Appeal rejected his argument and instead excluded this specific aspect of the civil rules as being inappropriate in the criminal law context. |
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Gross negligence definition Lord Hewart
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Bateman (1925) |
Defendant was a doctor in a case where a woman died giving birth. Established negligence required as the basis for criminal liability. Lord Hewart: '.. in order to establish criminal liability the facts must be such that, in the opinion of the jury, the negligence of the accused went beyond a mere matter of compensation between subjects and showed such disregard for the life and safety of others as to amount to a crime against the State and conduct deserving punishment...'. |
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Gross negligence definition Lord Atkin |
Andrews (1937) |
Defendant attempted to pass another car by driving on the offside of the road and killed the victim, a pedestrian. Lord Atkin: '..There is an obvious difference in the law of manslaughter between doing an unlawful act and doing a lawful act with a degree of carelessness which the legislature makes criminal. If it were otherwise a man who killed another while driving without due care and attention would ex necessitate commit manslaughter... [and] a very high degree of negligence is required to be proved before the felony is established...'. |
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Gross negligence scout leader |
Finlay (2001) |
Defendant, a scout leader, took a group to Snowdon and the victim, a 10 year old, fell and died. Evidence showed some safety procedures had not been fully adhered to. However, the jury found there was not sufficient disregard for life to amount to gross negligence. Defendant acquitted. |
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Gross negligence railroad parents gross negligence manslaughter |
Edwards (2001) |
Defendant’s allowed the victims, their 7 year old daughter and a friend, to play near a railway line. Defendant’s had promised to warn the victim’s of any approaching trains. Victims were killed by a train the defendant’s had not seen. Defendants were found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter. |
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Actus reus Unlawful act criminal
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Lamb (1967) |
Defendant and victim were playing with a revolver. Both knew it was loaded but thought as the two bullets in the chamber were not opposite the hammer it would not fire. Defendant, as a joke, pointed the gun and pulled the trigger, killing the victim. It was held there was no assault (criminal act) because the victim shared in the joke and so felt no fear of violence. Defendant found not guilty of manslaughter |
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Dangerous act unintended victim Unlawful Act Manslaughter |
Mitchell (1983) |
Defendant argued with an elderly man in a post office queue and pushed him. The man fell into an elderly woman, the victim, who died from her injuries. Defendant had committed assault on the man. Defendant had committed an unlawful act which was dangerous. Defendant convicted of manslaughter. |
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Dangerous Act Against a property overlap btwn gross & unlawful Unlawful Act Manslaughter |
Goodfellow (1986) |
Defendant deliberately set fire to his council flat in order to be given an alternative. Three people died in the subsequent fire. Court of Appeal upheld the defendant’s conviction for manslaughter |
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Dangerous act physical harm Unlawful Act Manslaughter |
Dawson (1985) |
Defendants attempted to rob a petrol station wearing masks and armed with pickaxe handle and a replica gun. Victim, the attendnant, raised the alarm and then suffered a heart attack which killed him. Victim suffered from a seroius heart condition. Defendants convictions were quashed on appeal. Victim’s heart condition should not have been considered by the jury, as explained by Justice Watkins an objective test: '.. can only be undertaken upon the basis of the knowledge gained by a sober and reasonable man as though he were present at the scene of and watched the unlawful act being performed...'.Court of Appeal also held that a 'an emotional disturbance' was insufficient to amount to harm. |
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substantial cause of death -chain of causation |
Corion-Auguiste (2004) |
Defendant threw an air bomb firework during the rush hour in an enclosed bus station. Victim, an elderly lady, was knocked over in the panic. She struck her head and died . Defendant’s act was the direct and substantial cause of death. Defendant was convicted of unlawful act manslaughter. |
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substantial cause of death -Novous actus interveniens Unlawful Act Manslaughter |
Kennedy (2007) |
Defendant filled a syringe with heroin and gave it to the victim. Victim injected himself and died. Defendant was convicted of manslaughter. House of Lords overturned the defendant’s conviction. Stating the victim voluntarily injecting himself was an intervening act which broke the chain of causation . |
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Substantial cause of death -Multiple causes of death
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Carey (2006) |
Defendants, three girls, started a fight with the victim. Victim suffered minor bruises but as she ran away she died from an inherent heart disease which was aggravated by the running. Defendants were convicted of unlawful act manslaughter based on affray. Defendants convictions were quashed on appeal. It was held the victim had been running to get home, not from a serious threat. The dangerous act was a single punch, which was not the cause of death and a 'reasonable person' would not have foreseen more than trivial harm. 4 |
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Mens rea Unlawful Act Manslaughter |
Le Brun (1991) |
Defendant hit the victim, his wife, on the chin during an argument outside their house. He dragged her inside the house, in doing so he accidentally fractured her skull and she died. Defendant was convicted of manslaughter. Court of Appeal upheld the conviction. Although the original act was not the direct cause of death both were part of 'the same sequence of events'. The original punch was intentional that was sufficient mens rea. |
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Definition for subjective SRMS -subjective test
subjective reckless manslaughter |
Cunningham (1957) |
Defendant removed gas meter from an empty house to steal money from it. This caused a gas leak, which seeped next door. The victim, a woman who lived next door, became ill and her life was endangered by the gas. The court found that to have the necessary mens rea the defendant must either intend the consequence or realise that there was a risk of the consequence happening and decide to take that risk
Subjective test |
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Definition for SRMS -subjectively obvious to an adult
of normal intelligence
subjective reckless manslaughter
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Newsbury and Jones (1976) |
Defendants, teenagers, had threw a paving stone from a railway bridge onto a train and killed the victim, a train guard. Defendants were convicted of manslaughter. House of Lords upheld the conviction and confirmed it was not necessary to prove the defendant had known the act was unlawful or dangerous. It is sufficient to prove a defendant intentionally did an act which was unlawful and dangerous and that act caused death. |
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subjective test for recklessness criminal Damage 15yr olds
subjective reckless manslaughter
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Gemmel and Richards (2004) |
Defendants, were boys aged 11 and 12 , they went to the back of a shop in Newport Pagnell, lit some newspapers which set fire to a wheelie-bin and engulfed the shop, causing £1m of damage. They were convicted of arson by a jury. House of Lords overturned their convictions. Finding the trial judge wrong for directing the jury not to consider the young age of the defendants. The test appears to be an entirely subjective one, where a defendant is only guilty if he realises the risk of damage |
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subjective test for recklessness manslaughter Lord Evans
subjective reckless manslaughter
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Lidar (1999) |
Defendant, was in the driver seat of his car in a pub carpark when the victim lent through the passenger window and a fight started. Defendant drove off with the victim still half in the car and the victim got his feet caught in the rear wheel and died. The trial judge referred to recklessness in his direction to the jury and the defendant was convicted. On appeal his conviction was affirmed. Lord Evans noted that there was nothing in the Adomako (1994) decision to exclude reckless manslaughter |
