Criminal Law Flashcards
AR and MR of Battery
AR: Application of unlawful force. Any unlawful physical contact.
MR: Intention or subjective
recklessness.
AR and MR of Wounding and GBH s.20
AR: Inflicting gbh or wounding. GBH serious harm, wounding is breaking skin.
MR: Intention or recklessness as to if harm is caused.
Assault
Intentionally putting another person in reasonable apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact.
Battery
any intentional [or reckless] touching of another person without the consent of that person and without lawful excuse. It need not necessarily be hostile, rude, or aggressive.
ABH s.47 Offences against the person Act 1861
Any assault causing ABH.
Wounding and GBH s.20
Unlawfully/maliciously wounding or inflicting any gbh upon any other person with or without a weapon.
Wounding and GBH s.18
unlawfully/maliciously wound or cause gbh to any person, with intent, to do some gbh to any person, or with intent to resist or prevent the lawful apprehension or detainer of any person.
Murder
Unlawful killing of another human being.
Involuntary Manslaughter
The crime of killing another human being unlawfully but unintentionally.
Theft
A person intentionally takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker’s use.
Preliminary offence - Attempt
A person tries to commit an offence but for some reason fails to complete it
Transferred Malice
Intention can transfer if a similar act is committed on someone else.
Omissions
Actus reus must involve an act, you can’t be guilty from a failure to act. 4 exceptions:
Contractual duty.
Statute.
A relationship.
A duty to put right a dangerous situation.
Intervening Acts
Will only break COC if unforeseeable.
Won’t break COC if foreseeable.
Escape cases, where the victim caused own harm/death but the defendant is still an operating/substantial cause.
Thin Skull Rule
Must take the victim as you find them.
Legal Causation
Cause has to be significant.
Or act has to be substantial and
operating cause.
Factual Causation
‘But for’ the act the consequences would be different.
Circumstances
The context, act and intention.
Mens Rea
Intention of the defendant.
Actus Reus
Act/conduct of the crime
Consent
Must be genuine and you can only consent to assault or battery and not death or the infliction of injury.
Can only consent to Sporting activities (heat of the moment), rough horseplay, surgery/tattooing.
Insanity
M’Naghten Rules is what needs to be proved:
Defect of reason, must be deprived of power to reason.
Caused by disease of mind.
Must result in a person not knowing the nature and quality of their act or appreciating that act was wrong
Intoxication
Not usually enable someone to avoid criminal liability.
Voluntary intoxication only a defence to murder or s.18. Person must be so intoxicated that they can’t form a mens rea.
Involuntary Intoxication a complete defence as long as mens rea cannot be formed.
Self Defence
Common law to use reasonable force to protect yourself or others.
Use reasonable force to prevent a crime or make an arrest.
Was the force necessary?
Was the force reasonable?
Robbery
the action of taking property unlawfully from a person or place by force or threat of force.
Automatism
You have not willed the act, your body is acting without your mind being in control.
Must be a total loss of control.
The cause must be something external.
Diminished responsibility
Bordering on but not amounting to insanity.
Defendant must be suffering from an abnormality of mental functioning.
Which results from a recognised medical condition.
Substantially impairs ability to understand his own conduct, form a rational judgement or exercise self control, gives explanation for his conduct.
Provocation
Loss of self control.
The killing must result from loss of self control.
Must be a qualifying trigger (killing in response to fear of serious violence).
A person of the defendants age and sex with a normal degree of tolerance and self restraint would have reacted in similar way in same circumstances.
Unlawful and dangerous act manslaughter
An unlawful act, must be a crime.
Must be proved that unlawful act was dangerous in the sense that a ‘sober and reasonable person would inevitably recognise it was risky’.
Act was the cause of death, this means applying the usual rules of factual causation and legal causation.
Mens rea required
Gross Negligence Manslaughter
Duty of care is owed.
There must be a breach of duty, can be an omission and must be foreseeable risk of death.
Must cause death.
The mens rea is gross negligence.
Duress
Defendant is forced to commit a crime due to a direct threat.
AR and MR of ABH s.47 Offences against the person Act 1861
Actus reus is assault or battery + ABH (any hurt/injury calculated to interfere with health/comfort).
MR: Intention or subjective
recklessness.
AR and MR of assault
AR: any act makes victim fear immediate infliction of unlawful force.
MR: Intention, aim purpose, subjective recklessness.
AR and MR of Wounding and GBH s.18
AR: Wounding causing gbh. Judges decided that cause and inflict is the same, so the actus reus it too.
MR: Intention to cause gbh or intention to resist arrest.
AR and MR of Murder
AR: Causing the death of a human being.
MR: Malice aforethought. Intention to cause gbh is sufficient.
AR of Involuntary Manslaughter
An unlawful act, must be a crime.
Must be proved that unlawful act was dangerous in the sense that a ‘sober and reasonable person would inevitably recognise it was risky’.
Act was the cause of death, this means applying the usual rules of factual causation and legal causation.
AR and MR of Theft
AR: Unauthorised taking, keeping, or using another’s property.
MR: Dishonesty and the intent to permanently deprive the owner or rightful of that property or its use.
AR and MR of Preliminary offence - Attempt
AR: A person who does an act which is more than merely preparatory to the commission of the offence.
MR: Intent to commit that offence.
AR and MR of Robbery
AR: A person uses force or threats of force on any person immediately before or at the time of stealing.
MR: Being dishonest and intentionally aiming to permanently deprive another person.
Self defence
Common law to use reasonable force to protect yourself or others.
Use reasonable force to prevent a crime or make an arrest.
Was the force necessary?
Was the force reasonable?
