Actus Reus = elements of an offence.

Question 0

Voluntary Act Requirement

Bratty v AttorneyGeneral of Northern Ireland 1963

Answer 0

The act or omission must be voluntary on the part of the defendant.

Lord Denning: ‘the requirement that it should be a voluntary act is essential… in every criminal case’.

Question 1

Actus Reus

Answer 1

= the physical element of a crime. Can be an

• act.
• an omission
• state of affairs (very rare).

Question 2

Voluntary conduct and lack of control

-Hill v Baxter (1958).

Answer 2

If a defendant has no control over his actions then he has not committed the actus reus.

Hill: court gave examples where a driver of a vehicle could not be said to be doing the act of driving voluntarily. These included where a driver lost control of vehicle because he:

• was stung by swarm of bees.
• struck on head by stone.
• heart attack while driving.
• Other examples of involuntary conduct =
• reflex action
• muscle spasm

Question 3

Broome v Perkins 1987

Answer 3

If the defendant knew that he was liable to lose control of his movements because of an existing health problem, then his actions would be considered as voluntary.

Question 4

Liability for Ommissions.

Answer 4

Generally a person will not be liable for simply failing to act.
However liability for omissions= a defendant is only guilty of a crime when failing to act, where he or she is under a duty to act.

Question 5

Omissions- where the defendant is under a duty to act.

Statutory duty

Answer 5

There are a large number of statutory duties requiring people to act in a particular way.
See for example the Road Traffic Act 1998, S6- a driver who fails to provide a breath sample when asked by police commits a criminal offence.

Question 6

Contractual duty

Pittwood 1902

Answer 6

Pittwood - a railway crossing keeper omitted to shut the gates so that a person crossing the line was struck and killed by a train.

• the keeper was guilty of manslaughter.
• He was in breach of his contractual duty and so constituted a criminal offence.

Question 7

Assumed duties.

R v Stone & Dobinson 1977.

Answer 7

People who voluntarily assume responsibility for another’s welfare will be under a duty to care for them.

Stone v Dobinson- defendants had undertaken the care of Stone’s elderly sister; they were guilty of manslaughter in failing to care for her or summon help when she became helpless.

-controversial decision because of the low capacity of the two accused as they seemed to have had enough difficulty looking after themselves,

Question 8

Liability for omission because of the relationship between the defendant and claimant.

Gibbons v Proctor 1918
Sheppard 1862

Answer 8

Gibbons: a parent is automatically responsible for caring for a child.
In Gibbons, a parent failed to feed their child and the child died of starvation then the parent was guilty of murder through an omission to act.
Sheppard: it was held that there was no duty owed by a parent to an 18 year old daughter - suggests that once a child reaches legal age of adulthood the legal duty of care may elapse.

Question 9

R v Evans 2009

Answer 9

A mother was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter when she failed to take any action although she knew that V had taken heroin and was overdosing.
Her older half sister was held not to be under a duty of cafe to act by virtue of their none blood relationship.
HOWEVER IN EVANS THE FACT THAT SHE HAD SUPPLIED THE DRUGS COULD CREATE THE DUTY.

Question 10

Continuing Act

Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner 1969

Answer 10

Continuing act was used to allow what seemed to be an omission to be treated as an act.

• D was told by a police officer to park his car close to the kerb, in obeying this order he accidentally drove over the police officers foot.
• D refused to remove the car and turned off the ignition after being told by the police officer that he had in fact driven over it, and was subsequently charged with assaulting the police officer in course of his duties.

-this required an act, not an omission which the refusal to remove the car was.
-D appealed on grounds of lacking mens rea, and although he had mens rea when he refused to move the car this was an omission.
APPEAL DISMISSED ON BASIS THAT DRIVING ON TO THE OFFICER’S FOOT AND STAYING THETE WAS ONE SINGLE CONTINUOUS ACT.
FAGAN= so long as the D had the mens rea at some point during the continuing act, he was liable.

Question 11

Creation of the danger.

R v Miller 1983

Answer 11

A duty which arises because the defendant has set in motion a chain of events.
Miller: a squatter accidentally started a fire, when he realised this he simply left the room and did not attempt to put it out or summon help.
Found guilty of arson.

The House of Lords reasoning in Miller was applied in Evans - when the sister collapsed and the woman failed to seek help, she could be liable for manslaughter on the basis that she owed her sister a duty of care to summon help, and had breached at duty.

Question 12

Duty by virtue of ones official position.

Dytham 1979

Answer 12

Dytham- a police officer witnessed a violent attack on the victim, but took no steps to intervene or summon help; instead drove away from the scene.
The officer was guilty of wilfully and without reasonable excuse of neglecting to perform his duty.

Question 13

What is required if there is a duty to act?

Singh(Gurphal)

Answer 13

The defendant must do what is reasonable- what is reasonable will be decided by the jury.

It is unsure whether the defendant is to do what is reasonable for them, or whether the test is what would be reasonable for the ordinary person to do.
However In Stone and Dobinson the court seemed to dismiss their disabilities but applied a general standard of acting.

Singh: a landlord and his agent were responsible for failing to bring in experts when tenants complained that there gas fires were not working properly and subsequently a tenant died from escaping carbon monoxide.

Question 14

Dalloway 1847

Answer 14

Must be shown that the omission caused the harm.
-had the defendant acted reasonably in accordance with their duty the harm would not have occurred.
So in Dalloway- the defendant was driving a cart without keeping proper grip, a child ran out in front of the cart and was killed.
-Held that if the D was to be convicted it had to be shown that if he had been driving properly he would have been able to avoid injuring the child.

Question 15

Acts and Omissions

Speck 1977

Answer 15

Speck- difficulty in distinguishing been acts and omissions.

• A child innocently placed her hand on a man’s genital area and he did nothing to move her hand.
• act or omission?
• Held that it was an act by the man, although it might be more naturally be regarded by an omission.

(Andrew Ashworth- although there are some clear cases of omission and some cases of act, there are many cases in which the act-omission distinction should not be used as a cloak for avoiding the moral issues)

Question 16

Airedale NHS Trust v Bland 1993

Answer 16

• Tony Bland,17, injured at Hillsborough.
• Diagnosed with persistent vegetative state
• Medical opinion was that there was no hope of any improvement in his condition or recovery.
• consultant in charge of his case sought from the court a declaration permitting the discontinuation of all life sustaining treatment.

Lord Mustill: absent a duty, the omission to perform what had been a duty will no longer be a breach of the criminal law.
- it is not an omission where the doctor stops caring for or treating a patient where it is in the patient’s best interest.

Question 17

Causation:

Answer 17

Where a consequence must be proved, then the prosecution has to show that the defendants conduct was:

• the factual cause of that consequence, and
• the legal cause of that consequence, and
• that there was no intervening act which broke the chain of causation.

Question 18

Factual or ‘But for’ Causation

Answer 18

But for: the defendants act is a but for cause of a result- but for the the defendants act, the result would not have occurred.

Question 19

White 1910

Answer 19

The defendant put poison in his mother’s drink intending to kill her.

• However she had a heart attack before the drink took hold and died.
• Held that the defendant did not cause her death, as the victim would have died at the same time had the defendant not put the poison in the drink = the poison was not a factual cause of the death.

Question 20

Dyson 1961

Answer 20

Dyson- the victim was dying from meningitis when D injured him.
Victim died as a result of the injuries.
Dyson could be held to have caused the victims death- but for Dyson’s actions the victim would not have dies at the time and place that he did.

Question 21

Legal Causation

Answer 21

A legal cause is ‘an operating and substantial cause’
Substantial = the defendants conduct must make ‘an insubstantial or insignificant contribution’ - Cato 1976.

Operating= D’s act must be an operating cause of the result.

Question 22

BREAKING THE CHAIN OF CAUSATION: novus actus interveniens

Answer 22

The chain of causation can be broken by:

• Act of 3rd party
• Victims own act
• Natural but unpredictable event.

Question 23

R v Kennedy 2007

Answer 23

Kennedy prepared a syringe of heroin for B.
B injected himself and died shortly after.
Kennedy was charged with supplying class A drugs and manslaughter- convicted on both charges.
-On appeal the Court of Appeal held that the cruces question was whether the appellant could be held to be jointly responsible for carrying out the injection.
-initially held that the judge’s direction had been correct and appeal was dismissed.
-however the Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the case back to the Court of Appeal on the basis that later cases cast doubt on reasoning of Court Appeal decision as the Judge failed adequately to explain to the jury that the free, voluntary and informed act of the victim in injecting himself would break the chain of causation between appellants act of supplying drugs and victims death.
-appellants convictions for manslaughter quashed.

Question 24

R v Kennedy

Answer 24

Principle confirms by their Lordships is that:

• If A does an act after which B does an act; and’
• It renders A’s act no longer a substantial and operating cause.

A will have not caused the result. B’s act will be a novus actus interveniens.

Question 25

What constitutes a feee, Voluntary and Informed Act which breaks the chain of causation?

Answer 25

1) Where a person, D, is not acting voluntarily, their action will not be an intervening act.
E.g. If G pushes M into I who suffers injuries then G is said to have caused the injuries as M was not acting in a voluntary way and so her act was not intervening.

2) Where a person is acting in a way which is justified, his or her action is not free, voluntary or informed.

Question 26

Medical treatment and the breaking the chain of causation.

R v Cheshire 1991

Answer 26

Normally where even though the treatment was not as it should have been, it did not break the chain of causation.
Only in the most unusual of circumstances will medical treatment, however negligent, break the chain of causation.

Cheshire: C shot the victim in the leg and stomach during an argument.
Victim was taken to hospital and placed in intensive care.
A tracheotomy tube was inserted in his windpipe because of breathing difficulties.
Two months later the victim died because the windpipe narrowed where the operation had been performed.
D was convicted of murder, appealed on basis that trial judge wrongly directed the jury.

Question 27

Omissions of third parties breaking the chain of causation.

Answer 27

It is submitted that omissions of a third party cannot break the chain of causation.

• because an omission cannot render the defendants act no longer an operating and substantial cause.
• if the D stabbed the victim who was taken to hospital but died because no medical treatment was offered- then the defendant would be said to have caused the death.

Question 28

Acts of the Victim breaking the chain.

R v Roberts (1971)

Marjoram (2000)

Answer 28

Roberts: IF THE DEFENDANT CAUSES THE VICTIM TO REACT IN A FORESEEABLE WAY, THEN ANY INJURY TO THE VICTIM WILL HAVE BEEN CAUSED BY THE DEFENDANT.
-R was giving the victim a lift in his car after a party when he made indecent suggestions to her.
-Threatened her and started to touch her coat
-She jumped out of the car injuring herself.
Roberts was convicted of causing her ABH contrary to s47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.
-Judge directed the jury that if they felt sure that the victim was induced to jump out of the car, they should convict the D.

Majoram: which emphasised that when deciding whether the victim’s reaction was foreseeable the question was whether the REACTION WAS FORESEEABLE TO AN ORDINARY PERSON AND NOT WHETHER THE REACTION WAS FORESEEABLE TO AN ORDINARY PERSON OF THE D’S AGE AND CHARACTERISTICS.

Question 29

Acts of the victim breaking the chain

R v Blaue (1975

Answer 29

Blaue stabbed V, piercing her lung.
She was rushed to hospital needing a transfusion, however she rejected this on grounds of her being a Jehovah’s Witness.
-she was told she would die the next day without the transfusion, still rejected this and did in fact die.
Appellant was subsequently convicted of manslaughter but appealed arguing that the victims refusal broke the chain of causation between stabbing and death.
Appeal dismissed: Lord Justice Lawton- ‘the fact that the victim refused to stop this end coming about did not break the causal connection between the act and death’.

Question 30

Blaue - Thin skull rule

Answer 30

The thin skull rule= defendants must take their victims as they find them.

(However said by Colvin that there is no need for a special rule because in all cases where the thin skull rule is used, the operating and substantial cause test would produce the same result.

Question 31

Dear 1996

Answer 31

Victim was stabbed by the D.
-the victim died from the wounds although it was unclear whether the victim had reopened the wounds himself.
The Court of Appeal held that the jury was entitled to find that the defendant’s actions could be found to have been an operating and substantial cause of the victim’s death.

Question 32

Dhaliwal 2006

Answer 32

Court of Appeal appeared willing to accept that a husband who had been continually abusive to wife had caused her to commit suicide.
-although very little was spoken about causation, it could be seen that, the defendant, through the abuse, has made suicide something the victimless as not truly free to avoid.

Question 33

R v Blaue - thin skull rule.

Answer 33

The Court of a Appeal said that under the thin skull the defendant must take the victim as the whole person.
-this includes not only their physical characterises but also in that case their religious beliefs.

Question 34

A natural event/Acts of a God and breaking the chain of causation.

Answer 34

A natural event will not normally break the chain of causation.
Hart 1986- if the D injures the victim and leaves his or her body on the sea shore and the sea comes in and drowns the victim then the sea coming in doesn’t break the chain of causation.

(Freak of nature may break chain of causation)

Question 35

Jordan 1956

Answer 35

V was given a large volume of medicine to which he had previously shown intolerance.
-this was described as abnormal medical treatment and it broke the chain of causation between D who had stabbed V and V’s death.

Question 36

Malcherek 1981

Answer 36

A doctor who switches off a life support machine is not the cause of death where V was originally and criminally injured by D.

Question 37

Liability for omissions

Glanville Williams v Professor Ashworth

Answer 37

Glanville Williams: ‘that we should not fill our prisons with the indolent’.
He argues that a coward is not a criminal and we should not adopt the French offence of voluntarily failing to render assistance to a person in peril.
Williams believes that liability should only exist is situations in which Parliament has seen fit to impost a duty to act.

Professor Ashworth on the contrary believes that the courts should develop a code of positive and social values.
-he thinks that there should be a duty to protect each other by an appropriate degree of proximity and reasonability.