Criminal Law - Defences Flashcards
What is the legal test for INVOLUNTARY intoxication?
Legal Question: Did D form the mens rea of murder, even if he was involuntarily intoxicated?
R v Kingston: Despite being drugged, he still formed the necessary MR to harm the child.
What is the legal test for VOLUNTARY intoxication?
What is the legal test for CONSENT?
You can only consent to basic assault or battery?
You cannot consent to harm greater than that (i.e. ABH or above), other than certain exceptions:
- medical treatment
- sports (whatever is in reasonably within the rules of the game, even really serious harm through tackles in football)
- horseplay (physical play, can even include consent to GBH in some older cases)
- cosmetic (e.g. tattoos but not things like extreme body modifications - R v BM)
- sexual Gratification (R v Brown failed, but consider R v Wilson where the old man carved his initials into the wife’s bottom with a knife at her request).
What is the legal test for SELF-DEFENCE?
- D honestly believed that the use of force was necessary;
- The level of force was objectively reasonable in the circumstances, as D believed them to be.
Can “mistake” ever be a legal defence?
Mistake will not often save D from criminal liability, as reckless is quite a low bar.
Similarly, being ignorant of the fact that X action is illegal is not a defence.
Mistake can sometimes exculpate D, for example in theft, e.g. D mistakenly took someone else’s umbrella from the doctor’s office but later return it and found his own.
