Chapter 7 key cases (Fatal offencee agaisnt the person)

Question 1

R v Vickers (1957)?

Answer 1

• Vickers broke into the cellar of a sweet shop.
• He knew that the old lady was deaf, however she saw vickers.
• He then hit her several times with his fists and kicked her once in the head.
• She then later died of her injuries.
• The court of appeal upheld vickers conviction for murder.
• It pointed out where a defendant intends to inflict grievous bodily harm and the victim dies, that has always been sufficient in english law to imply malice afterthought.

Question 2

R v Jewell (2014)?

Answer 2

• The defendant shot the victim at point blank range with a shotgun and fled to his car.
• When he got arrested a survival kit was found in his car (including a tent, clothes, passport etc).
• He stated when he got out the car at the victims house he had no control of his actions.
• There was insufficient evidence for him losing his control.

Question 3

R v Ward (2012)?

Answer 3

• The defendant successfully pleaded loss of control after killing the victim, who attacked defendants brother at a house party.
• The defendant and his brother went to wait for a taxi, but it was delayed and it was very cold so they went back inside.
• They were refused re-entry and the defendants brother was head butted by the victim.
• The defendant then hit the victim with a pick axe handle, the injuries from which cause his death.

Question 4

R v Zebedee (2012)?

Answer 4

• The defendant lost his control when his 94 year old father, who suffered Alzheimer’s and was doubly incontinent, repeatedly soiled himself.
• He killed his father.
• He put forward the defence of loss of control.
• The appeal court ruled that neither condition was present in the case.
• He was convicted of murder.

Question 5

R v Bowyer (2013)?

Answer 5

• The defendant and the victim were both having a relationship with the same prostitute.
• The victim was also her pimp.
• The defendant was not aware she was a prostitute.
• The defendant went to the victims house to burgle him, but a fight developed.
• The victim told the defendant that the woman was a prostitute and taunted him by saying that he was his best earner.
• Defendant lost control, beat the victim and tied him up.
• He was left alive but died later on.
• The court concluded that the victim was entitled to say anything reasonable, including force, to eject a burglar from his home.

Question 6

R v Clinton (2012)?

Answer 6

• Both the defendant and his wife suffered from depression and required meds.
• He lost control due to a number of factors and killed his wife as previously she had told him about her sexual relations with many men.
• She also taunted him about him about suicide websites he visited and told him she no longer wanted their children.
• Here, the defence of loss of control should be decided by the jury.

Question 7

R v Byrne (1960)?

Answer 7

• The defendant was a sexual psychopath who strangled a young woman and then mutilated her body.
• The medical evidence was that, because of his condition, he was unable to control his perverted desires.
• He was convicted of murder but the court of appeal quashed the conviction and substituted a conviction of manslaughter.

Question 8

R v Dowds (2012)?

Answer 8

• The defendant and his girlfriend, the victim, were heavy drinkers.
• In a drunken state he stabbed her 60 times.
• He was convicted of murder.
• He appealed on the ground that his state of ‘acute intoxication’ should have been left to the jury as providing a possible defence of diminishes responsibility.
• His appeal was rejected.

Question 9

R v Dietschmann (2003)?

Answer 9

• The defendant felt that the victim was disrespecting the memory of the defendants aunt who had just died.
• He killed the victim by repeatedly kicking and stomping on him.
• The defendant had drunk heavily before the killing.
• Psychiatrists called by the prosecution and the defence agreed that the defendant was suffering from adjustment disorder.
• However, they disagreed on whether this had substantially impaired his mental responsibility for the killing.
• He was convicted for manslaughter.
• He was convicted and appealed.
• instead of murder he was convicted for manslaughter.

Question 10

R v Kay (2017)?

Answer 10

• The defendant had a long history of alcohol and drug abuse, and was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.
• During a three day bender, and in a psychotic episode where he believed he was satan he stabbed the victim to death (a complete stranger)
• He relied on diminished responsibility at the time of the death, as he was suffering from abnormality of mental functioning which arose from a recognised medical condition - schizophrenia.
• The partial defence was only possible if the condition was so severe that it would have impaired responsibility without intoxication.

Question 11

R v Tandy (1989)?

Answer 11

• Mrs Tandy had been an alcoholic for a number of years.
• One day she nearly drank a whole bottle of vodka.
• The evening she told her mother that her second husband had sexually abused her 11 year old daughter.
• She then strangled her daughter.
• The trial judge told the jury to decide whether Tandy was suffering from an abnormality of mind or whether she was just drunk.
• She was convicted.
• The court dismissed her appeal as there were no signs of injury to her brain.

Question 12

R v Wood (2008)?

Answer 12

• The defendant ,after drinking heavily, had gone to the victims flat and fell asleep.
• He was woken up by the victim trying to perform oral sex on him.
• The defendant repeatedly hit the victim with a meat cleaver, killing him.
• At the trial, the medical experts agreed that the defendant was suffering from ADS, but disagreed as to whether this had damaged his brain.
• The judge directed the jury that the defendant could only use the defence of diminished responsibility if he was drinking involuntarily.
• The defendant was convicted but appealed successfully as the Judges direction of the jury was wrong.

Question 13

R v Lamb (1967)?

Answer 13

• Lamb and his friend were fooling around with a revolver.
• They both knew that it was loaded with two bullets in a five-chamber cylinder but thought it would not fire.
• But they did not realise that the cylinder turned position, so the cylinder fired.
• Lamb pointed the gun at his friend and killed him.
• It was held that the defendant did not do an unlawful act. The pointing of the gun at the friend was not an assault as the friend did not fear any violence from lamb.

Question 14

R v Lowe (1973)?

Answer 14

• The defendant was convicted for willingly neglecting his baby son and of his manslaughter.
• The trial judge had directed the jury if they found the defendant guilty of wilful neglect then he was also guilty of manslaughter.
• The court of appeal quashed the conviction for manslaughter because a finding of wilful neglect involved a failure to act.
• This could not support a conviction for unlawful act manslaughter.

Question 15

R v Larkin (1943)?

Answer 15

• The defendant threatened another man with an open cut-throat razor to scare him.
• The mistress of the other man intervened, because she was drunk, she fell onto the blade and it cut her neck and killed her
• His conviction for manslaughter was upheld because:
  . The act of threatening the man was technical assault
  . The act was also dangerous because it was likely to injure someone

Question 16

R v JM v SM (2012)?

Answer 16

• JM lit the cigarette inside a nightclub and was asked to leave.
• After some pushing, JM and SM left.
• They came back and kicked a fire door, which led to a fight between the brothers and the doorman.
• One of the doorman had collapsed and later died due to loss of blood.
• They were convicted.

Question 17

R v Goodfellow (1986)?

Answer 17

• The defendant set fire to his council flat so that the council would rehouse him.
• The fire got out of control and his wife, son and another woman died.
• He was convicted of manslaughter and appealed.
• His conviction was upheld because of all the elements of unlawful act manslaughter were present.

Question 18

R v Kennedy (2007)?

Answer 18

• The defendant and victim were living together in a hostel. The victim asked the defendant for ‘a bit to let him sleep’.
• The defendant prepared a dose of heroine for the victim, and passed it to him.
• The victim did and died several hours later, due to choking on his own vomit under the influence of drugs.
• The defendant was not liable for manslaughter as he was an adult and was liable for his own actions.

Question 19

DPP v Newbury and Jones (1976)?

Answer 19

• Two teenage boys pushed a paving stone from a bridge onto a railway line as a train was approaching.
• The stone hit the train and killed the guard.
• They were convicted of manslaughter.

Question 20

R v Adomako (1994)?

Answer 20

• The defendant was an anaesthetist.
• During an operation, one of the tubes supplying oxygen to the patient became disconnected.
• The defendant failed to notice this until some minutes later when the patient suffered a heart attack caused by the lack of oxygen.
• The patient suffered brain damage and died 6 months later as a result.
• Doctors giving evidence in the trial said that a competent anaesthetics would have noticed the disconnection of the tube within 15 seconds and the failure to act was ‘abysmal’
• They were convicted on gross negligence manslaughter.

Question 21

R v Singh (1999)?

Answer 21

• The defendant was the landlord of property in which a faulty gas caused the deaths of tenants.
• It was recognised that there was a duty on the defendant to manage and maintain property properly.

Question 22

R v Wacker (2002)?

Answer 22

• The defendant brought 60 illegal immigrants into England.
• They were put in the back of his lorry for a cross-channel ferry crossing.
• The only air into the lorry was a small vent and it was agreed that it should be closed at certain times to prevent immigrants from being discovered.
• The defendant closed the vent before boarding the ferry.
• 58 of the immigrants were found dead.
• The defendants conviction was upheld and the court stated the defendant knew the safety of the immigrants depended on him.