Denials of offence Flashcards
Kingston
A drunken intent is still intent
Kingston
facts
Y and X hired P to take photos of D to use for blackmail. P invited V (15 year old) to his flat, gave him alcohol and drugs and left him asleep. He then drugged D’s coffee and encouraged him to assault V as he slept. D did so. Held: a drunken intent is still intent.
Intoxication rules requirements
1) D’s intoxication is voluntary
2) D’s offence at T2 must have been of basic intent not specific intent
3) D’s intoxicant at T1 must have been ‘dangerous’
4) D must lack mens rea at T2 because of that intoxication
Allen
Involuntary intoxication
D committed buggery and assult. He lacked mens rea (he claimed he was not acting voluntarily) because he had consumed a large amount of wine, he claimed it was involuntary intoxication because he did not realise the strength. Held: D’s intoxication was voluntary.
Aitken
Where D’s offence is a basic offence and lacks mens rea due to voluntary intoxication, she is liable for offence
Davies
Where D’s offence is a specific offence and lacks mens rea due to voluntary intoxication, she is not liable for offence.
Majewski
Offences which can be satisfied by recklessness are basic intent, those requiring intention are specific intent.
Lord Simon however, discusses a test based on intention as to consequences, but this cannot be right with murder as it can be committed without intention to kill (i.e. GBH).
Heard
Whilst drunk, D exposed his penis and rubbed it on a police officer’s leg. D claimed to lack mens rea due to intoxication (lack of intentional touching). Held: guilty.
1) Sexual assault is a basic intent offence, despite mens rea of intentional touching
2) Implication =all sexual offences are basic inten where D’s mens rea relates solely to D’s intentional contact with V and her non-consent.
3) Alternative test for basic and specific intent offences = ulterior intent.
Hughes thought that any offence requiring ulterior mens rea will be one of specific intent. But this would mean murder was a basic intent as does not require ulterior intent.
O’Connor
Austria has rejected the Majewski distinction
Basic intent/specific intent offences?
Beard
Manslaughter = basic intent
Basic intent/specific intent offences?
Aitken
Wounding or causing GBH (s20) = basic intent
Basic intent/specific intent offences?
Majewski
Assult and battery
= basic intennt
Basic intent/specific intent offences?
Grout
Rape = basic intent
Basic intent/specific intent offences?
Heard
Sexual assault = basic intent
Basic intent/specific intent offences?
Caldwell
Criminal damage = basic intent
Basic intent/specific intent offences?
Beard
Murder = specific intent
Basic intent/specific intent offences?
Davies
Wounding or causing GBH with intent (s18)
= specific intent
Basic intent/specific intent offences?
Majewski
Theft and robbery = specific intent
Gallagher
Dutch courage = D becomes intoxicated at T1 in order to commit specific offence
Where D lacks mens rea for specific intent offence, D’s intoxication cannot replace her lack of mens rea, so no liability for that offence. However, where there is dutch courage, where D becomes intoxicated at T1 in order to commit the specific offence at T2. He will be liable
Gallagher facts
D decided to kill his wife. D drank most of the bottle and then killed her. Held: guilty, but because intoxicated mens rea is still mens rea.
BUT D must have gotten drunk IN ORDER TO kill V.
Lipman
Drugs such as LSD are commonly known to be dangerous.
Bailey
Where intoxicant consumed is not commonly known and D does not personally know, D’s prior fault will not be sufficient substitute for the mens rea of basic intent at T2.
Diabetic failed to take sufficient food after insulin and committed an attack.
Hardie
Intoxicant consumed was not commonly known or known to D.
D took valium tablets to calm himself down. D returned, intoxicated by tablets and set fire to wardrobe. Held: Valium was not a dangerous drug, and D had no reason to believe it would lead to the actions
Richardson and Irwin
D must lack mens rea BECAUSE of the intoxication.
D must have foreseen the risk if sober. It is subjective.
Hatton
In cases of intoxication and self defence, the gladstone Williams authority becomes ignored. And D’s (if honest belief) will be disregarded if based on an intoxicated mistake.
Intoxicated, D killed V. D raised self-defence thaat he thought V had attacked him with a stick that he thought was a sword. Held: he could not rely on his intoxicated mistake.
Exception - Jaggard v Dickinson
Jaggard v Dickinson
D told by X to use his house. Returning home drunk, D mistakenly tried to enter an identical house. D broke her way in and raised defence that she believed that the house belonged to X and he would have consented. Held: D may use defence even if her belief was based on intoxicated mistake.
AG’s Reference (No4 of 2000)
Where D acts voluntarily, even if her conduct was influenced by external factors, automatism will not be found.
Coley
Irrational or erratic voluntariness is still voluntariness.
There must be a “complete destruction of voluntary control”.
What is the burden for automatism?
There is an evidential burden for D, if she wants to raise automatism, to provide some evidence of involuntariness.
Bratty
No act is punishable if done involuntarily, involuntary means - an act done by the muscles without any control by the mind.
Broome v Perkins
Automatic state interpreted narrowly
D (diabetic) failed to take sufficient food after injection of insulin, whilst in a trace state, he drove erratically and collided with another car. Held: guilty because the fact he was able to coordinate his movements to drive, even though impeded meant that he was not fully in an autatic state.
AG’s Reference (No 2 of 1992)
Confirmed the extremely narrow definition of automatism.
Only a “total destruction of voluntary control” will suffice.
Coley
There is a narrow view of loss of voluntary control in non driving case.
Irrational behaviour with a deluded or disordered mind is not wholly involuntary action.
Bailey
Prior fault
D will only have sufficient prior fault where she has SUBJECTIVELY foreseen at T1 the potential for involuntariness at T2.
Contrast Quick
Quick
Prior fault
D will have fault is she OBJECTIVELY should have foreseen the risks.
This is subject to academic criticism.
Ryan
Australian case supports the Quick decision.
M’Naghten rules
1) D must suffer from a disease of the mind
2) Causing a defect of reason
3) This must have caused a lack of responsibility either because:
1) D did not know the nature or quality of her act
2) She did not know it was wrong
Kemp
Disease of the mind is a legal question not medical even were no degeneration of brain cells.
Quick
D was a diabetic and hurt someone due to a lack of food after insulin. Held: the state was externally caused.
Hennessy
D was diabetic and went into a coma induced by lack of insulin. Held: the condition was internally caused, D could rely on insanity rules or change his plea to guilty - which he did.
Sullivan
Epileptics are treated as insanee
Burgess
Sleepwalkers are treated as insane.
Rabey
Canadian case
D became infatuated with V, discovered she was not interested and reacted by hitting her. Court held: that “the common stresses and disappointments of life do not constitute an external cause”.
T
D took part in a robbery. D had been raped at some point prior to the robbery. D was acting in a dissociative state. Held: D’s conduct was not fully involuntary here but a psychological blow can be an external cause.
Lowe
Law applied at crown court level has increasingly failed to apply the rules set down by appellate courts in favour of a more commonsense approach (i.e. allowing automatism to run in sleep walking cases).
Clarke
Causing a defect in reason
D took articles from a shop without paying, she did this absent-mindedly due to depression. Held:
Short periods of absent-mindedness fell far short of amounting to a defect of reason.
Sullivan
Causing a lack of responsibility limb 1. D needs to not know what he was doing.
B
Causing a lack of responsibility limb 1.
D, a schizophrenic had sex with his wife (without consent), believing he had sexual healing powers. Court considered what would happen if he believed she was consenting. Held : he would be guilty.
Windle
Causing a lack of responsibility limb 2
D’s wife was mentally ill. D killed his wife and told the police “I suppose they will hang me for this”. Held: guilty.
D may think what he is doing is morally right but legally wrong so insanity will not apply.
Stapleton
Austrialian courts have refused to follow Windle.
Automatism Requirments
1) Involuntary
2) Caused externally
3) Prior fault
4) Basic intent
Insanity requirments
1) Disease of mind (internal)
2) Causing a defect of reason
3) Disease of mind cause her not to know the nature or quality or she did not know that it was wrong.
4) prior fault?
Coley
Disease of the mind
D suffered psychotic episode following cannabis. D attacked neighbour. He was acting as a role out of a computer game. Held: this was voluntary intoxication not disease of the mind.
Harris
D binged drank for several days. He then took time to sober up before returning to work. After several days he set fire to his home, charged with arson. His defence was not of intoxication, as sober at the time of house fire but of insanity based on disease of the mind caused by alcohol abuse. Held: disease of the mind.
Mcghee
In Automatism there must be a “complete destruction of voluntary control”.
R v Ryan
D with one hand pointed a loaded shotgun at V whom he had robbed, while the other hand tried to tie V up. D was startled and he ‘involuntarily’ pressed the trigger because of the reflex action. Held: tihs may be involuntary in the dictionary sense. However, it was one for which he was responsible in law and not properly analogous to an act done in convulsions or an epileptic seizure.
