Definitions

Question 1

Intent

Answer 1

In a criminal law context there are two specific types of intention in an offence. Firstly there must be an intention to commit the act and secondly, an intention to get a specific result.

Deliberate act:
“Intent” means that act or omission must be done deliberately. The act or omission must be more than involuntary or accidental.

Intent to produce a result:
The second type of intent is an intent to produce a specific result. In this context result means “aim, object, or purpose”.

Question 2

Proving Intent

Answer 2

Circumstantial evidence from which an offender’s intent may be inferred can include:
- the offender’s actions and words before, during and after the event
- the surrounding circumstances
- the nature of the act itself

Question 3

Proving Recklesness

Answer 3

When Recklessness is an element in an offence the following must be proved:
1. That the defendant consciously and deliberately ran a risk (a subjective test)
2. That the risk was one that was unreasonable to take in the circumstances as they were known to the defendant (objective test - based on whether a reasonable person would have taken the risk).

Question 4

Damage

Answer 4

Although fire damage will often involve burning or charring, it is not necessary that the property is actually set alight; melting, blistering of paint or significant smoke damage may be sufficient.

Question 5

Fire

Answer 5

Fire is the result of the process of combustion, a chemical reaction between fuel and oxygen, triggered by heat. For fire to start or continue, each of the three elements - fuel, oxygen, and heat - must be present in the correct proportions.

Question 6

Explosive

Answer 6

Arms Act 1983, Section 2
Explosive
(a) Means any substance or mixture or combination of substances which in its normal state is capable either of decomposition at such rapid rate as to result in an explosion or of producing a pyrotechnic effect; and
(b) WIthout limiting paragraph (a) of this definition, includes gunpowder, nitroglycerine, dynamite, gun-cotton, blasting powder, fulminate of mercury or of other metals, coloured flares, fog signals, fuses, rockets, percussion caps, detonators, cartridges, and ammunition of all descriptions; and
(c) Without limiting paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of this definition, includes any device, contrivance, or article, which uses any substance or mixture or combination of substances to which paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of this definition applies as an integral part of it for the purposes of producing an explosion or a ballistic or pyrotechnic effect; but does not include a firearm; and
(d) Does not include any firework as defined in section 2 of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996.

Question 7

Property

Answer 7

Crimes Act 1961, Section 2
Property includes real and personal property, and any estate or interest in any real or personal property, [money, electricity,] and any debt, and any thing in action, and any other right or interest.

Question 8

Knows or ought to know

Answer 8

Knowing means “knowing or correctly believing”, “the defendant may believe something wrongly, but cannot ‘know’ something that is false”. - Simester and Brookbanks

Question 9

Danger to life

Answer 9

“Life” in this context means human life, and the danger must be to the life of someone other than the defendant.

Question 10

Claim of right

Answer 10

Crimes Act 1961, Section 2
Claim of right, in relation to any act, means a belief [[at the time of the act in a proprietary or possessory right in property in relation to which the offence is alleged to have been committed]], although that belief may be based on ignorance or mistake of fact or of any matter of law other than the enactment against with the offence is alleged to have been committed.]

Question 11

Vehicle

Answer 11

Land Transport Act 1998, Section 2
Vehicle means a contrivance equipped with wheels, tracks, or revolving runners on which it moves or is moved, and includes a hovercraft, skateboard, in-line skates, and roller skates.
It does not include a perambulator or pushchair, shopping or sporting trundler not propelled by mechanical power, a wheel barrow or hand-trolley, a pedestrian-controlled lawnmower or agricultural machine not propelled by mechanical power, an article of furniture, a wheelchair not propelled by mechanical power, or any rail vehicle.

Question 12

Ship

Answer 12

Crimes Act 1961, Section 2
Ship means every description of vessel used in navigation, however propelled; and includes any barge, lighter, dinghy, raft, or like vessel; and also includes any ship belongint to or used as a ship of the armed forces of any country.

Question 13

Aircraft

Answer 13

Crimes Act 1961, Section 2
Aircraft has the same meaning as in the Civil Aviation Act 1990; and includes any aircraft for the time being used as an aircraft of any of the armed forces of any country other than New Zealand.

Civil Aviation Act 1990, Section 2
Aircraft means any machine that can derive support in the atmosphere from the reactions of the air otherwise than by the reactions of the air against the surface of the earth.

Question 14

Obtain

Answer 14

Crimes Act 1961, Section 217
Obtain, in relation to any person, means obtain or retain for himself or herself or for any other person.

Question 15

Benefit

Answer 15

Crimes Act 1961, Section 267
In sections 267 and 269, benefit means any benefit, pecuniary advantage, privilege, property, service, or valuable consideration.

Question 16

Person

Answer 16

Crimes Act 1961, Section 2
Person, owner, and other words and expressions of the like kind, include the Crown and any public body or local authority, and any board, society, or company, and any other body of persons, whether incorporated or not, and the inhabitants of the district of any local authority, in relation to such acts and things as it or they are capable of doing or owning.

Question 17

Attempt

Answer 17

To be guilty of an attempt to commit an offence a person must:
- Intend to commit the offence, and
- take a real and substantial step towards achieving that aim

Crimes Act 1961, Section 72
(1) Every one who, having an intent to commit an offence, does or omits an act for the purpose of accomplishing his object, is guilty of an attempt to commit the offence intended, whether in the circumstances it was possible to commit the offence or not.
(2) The question whether an act done or omitted with intent to commit an offence is or is not only preparation for the commission of that offence, and too remote to constitue an attempt to commit it, is a question of law.
(3) An act done or omitted with intent to commit an offence may constitue an attempt if it is immediately or proximately connected with the intended offence, whether or not there was any act unequivocally showing the intent to commit that offence.