Chapter 2: Actus Reus and Causation Flashcards
A child must be fully expelled from the mother’s body and born alive to be a person that is ‘in being’.
R v Poulton
Also AG-Ref (No 3 of 1994)
Not necessary for the umbilical cord to have been cut for a person to be ‘in being’.
R v Reeves
‘But for’ test for factual causation.
R v White - son poisoning his mother’s milk but her death unrelated.
The defendant is the ‘operating and substantial case’ of the prohibited consequence.
R v Pagett
Also R v Cheshire
The consequence must be caused by the defendant’s culpable act.
R v Dalloway
Also R v Marchant
A defendant can still be liable where other causes were present.
R v Benge
‘Substantial’ does not mean ‘really serious’; it means an act or omission that is not merely a ‘de minimus, trifling one’.
R v Cato
Also R v Kimsey
Enough that defendant’s act contributed significantly.
R v Pagett
Medical negligence not being sufficient cause to sever the chain of causation.
R v Smith - fight at barracks.
For negligent medical treatment to break the chain, it has to be so extraordinary and unusual that such treatment can be said to be so independent of defendant’s acts that it is regarded as the cause, to the exclusion of the defendant’s acts (they being insignificant in this case).
R v Cheshire
Actions of a third party have to be ‘free, deliberate and informed’ in order to break the chain of causation.
R v Pagett
‘Thin skull’ rule - doesn’t matter if the victim has a ‘thinner skull’ than average therefore suffers greater harm; you’re still liable! You take your victim as you find them.
R v Hayward
Taking the whole victim as you find them - mind and body.
R v Blaue
Sufferance of victim potentially just a coincidence and not a consequence of the unlawful act (I always find this one awkward…)
R v Carey
Boy runs away from defendant, believing D was about to assault him, and falls down stairs and dies - held that this was foreseeable and therefore not a novus actus interveniens.
R v Mackie
Woman jumps out of D’s car after D makes unwanted sexual advances - held that this was foreseeable and therefore not a novus actus interveniens.
R v Roberts
Victim’s reaction would only break the chain of causation if it were an act that was ‘so daft’ or ‘so unexpected’ that no reasonable person could have foreseen it.
R v Roberts
Additions to ‘daft/unexpected’ test:
There must be some proportionality between the threat and the action of the deceased in seeking to escape from it; and
The jury should bear in mind any particular characteristic of the victim and the fact that in the agony of the moment he may act without thought and deliberation.
R v Williams&Davis
Victim refusing medical treatment does not count as a novus actus interveniens. What mattered was that the wound was the real cause of death.
R v Holland - severely cut finger getting infected.
Also R v Blaue - refusal of medical treatment due to religious beliefs equivalent to not being able to obtain medical assistance.
Where the victim has died, e.g. bled to death, from the original wound, his act or omission done to commit suicide will not break the chain of causation.
R v Dear - may be easy to distinguish in cases where the injuries inflicted by the defendant have healed, but the victim goes on to commit suicide. If the reason for this suicide is unconnected to the attack, then the victim will not be bleeding from the original wound and chain of causation broken. HOWEVER in some cases it may be that the victim’s act was reasonably foreseeable e.g. brilliant pianist losing fingers.
Person who supplies a drug to another has not caused that drug to be administered - chain of causation broken by voluntary and informed decision to act. (Foreseeability not applied.)
R v Kennedy
On the question of which test to use, Court of Appeal stated that, ultimately, it will be the one which properly addresses the question of whether the defendant should be held responsible for the prohibited harm which had occurred (i.e. common sense).
R v Girdler
