Defences Involving Other People Flashcards
Compulsion or duress
Compulsion or duress mis the act of compelling a person to do something against their will. When the compulsion relates to a criminal offence, the law offers protection from prosecution in some cases.
Defendant must be compelled to commit offence by threats of immediate death or GBH to themselves or another person present.
Defence of compulsion
Sec.24 Crimes Act 1961
Compulsion
(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, a person who commits an offence under compulsion by threats of immediate death or grevious bodily harm from a person who is present when the offence is committed is protected from criminal responsibility if he believes that the threats will be carried out and if he is not a party to any association or conspiracy whereby he is subject to compulsion.
Mistake
“Except in the cases where proof of mens rea is unnecessary, bona fide mistake or ignorance as to matters of fact is available as a defence”
Ie. cultivating Cannabis from seed believing the seed was for tomatoes.
Entrapment
Entrapment occurs when an agent of an enforcement body deliberately causes a person to commit an offence, so that person can be prosecuted. It is not a substantive defence in the sense of providing a ground upon which the defendant is entitled to an acquittal. However, if the entrapment is unfair it may result in the court excluding the evidence.
Self defence
Sec.48 Crimes Act 1961
Self defence and defence of another
Every one is justified in using, in the defence of himself or another, such force as, in the circumstances as he believes them to be, it is reasonable to use.
Pre-emptive strike
It is possible for self defence to be raised as a defence, even if the defendant has used a pre-emptive strike against the victim. (Used before any actual bodily harm or threat is received, merely to break out of a threatening or dangerous situation).
Alibi
“As the plea in a criminal charge of having been elsewhere at the material time: the fact of being elsewhere.”
Consent
Someone accused of an offence may defend their actions by saying that they had the complainants consent to do what they did.
In some cases the fact that the complainant consented to the act is a complete defence. In offences against the person or property the general rule is that acts are criminal only when they are done against the will of person affected or the owner of the property concerned.
‘Consent’ is a person’s conscious and voluntary agreement to do something desired or proposed by another.
If the act itself is criminal, it cannot be made lawful merely because the person whom it will harm consents to it. No person can licence another to commit a crime, and so in such cases it is not necessary for you to prove that there was no consent.
