Evolution of The Offence

Question 1

Mens Rea

Answer 1

Presence of a guilty mind (intent)

Question 2

Actus Reus

Answer 2

The act or omission

Question 3

Statutory Defences

Answer 3

• Infancy
• Defense of self or others
• Defense of Property
• Insanity
• Compulsion

Question 4

Common Law Defences

Answer 4

• Impossibility
• Necessity
• Consent
• Intoxication
• Mistake
• Sane Automatism

Question 5

Conspiracy

Answer 5

The agreement between two or more people to do an unlawful act

Question 6

Attempts

Answer 6

Has intent to commit an unlawful act and has taken a step towards committing this act.

• intent (mens rea)- to commit the offence
• act(actus reus)- they did or omitted to do, something to achieve that end
• proximity- the act or omission was sufficiently close

Question 7

When can’t you charge with Attempts…

Answer 7

• The criminality depends on recklessness or negligence, e.g. manslaughter
• An attempt to commit an offence is included within the defintion of that offence, e.g. assault
• The offence is such that the act has to have been completed in order for the offence to exist at all, e.g Demands with menaces.

Question 8

Parties

Answer 8

Everyone is a party to and guilty of an offence who-

(a) actually commits the offence
(b) does or omits an act for the purpose of aiding any person to commit the offence
(c) abets any person in the commission of the offence
(d) invites, counsels, or procures any person to commit the offence

Question 9

Aids

Answer 9

To assist in the commission of the offence either physically or by giving advice and information. Does not have to be present at the time.

Question 10

Abets

Answer 10

To instigate or encourage or urge another person to commit the offence. Does not have to be present at the time.

Question 11

Incites

Answer 11

To rouse, stir up, stimulate, animate, urge or spur on a person to commit an offence

Question 12

Counsels

Answer 12

To intentionally instigate the offence by advising a person on how best to commit an offence or planning the commission of an offence for another person. Urging someone to commit an offence.

Question 13

Procures

Answer 13

Procurement is setting out to see that something happens and taking the appropriate steps to ensure that it does. Procure requires that the secondary party deliberately causes the principal party to commit the offence.

Question 14

Accessory after the fact

Answer 14

This is someone who knowing, any person to have been a party to the offence, receives, comforts, or assists that person or tampers with or actively suppresses any evidence against him/her, in order to enable him/her to escape after arrest or to avoid arrest or conviction.

Question 15

R v Mane

Answer 15

To be considered an accessory the acts done by the person must be after the completion of the offence.

Question 16

R v Crooks

Answer 16

Knowledge means actual knowledge or belief in the sense of having no real doubt that the person assisted was a party to the relevant offence. Mere suspicion of their involvement in the offence is insufficient

Question 17

R v Briggs

Answer 17

As with a receiving charge under s246(1), knowledge may also be inferred from willful blindness or deliberate abstention from making inquiries that would confirm the suspected truth

Question 18

Mulcahy v R

Answer 18

A conspiracy consists not merely in the intention of two or more, but in the agreement of two or more to do an unlawful act, or to do a lawful act by unlawful means. So long as such a design rests in intention only it is not indictable. When two agree to carry it (the intended offence) into effect, the very plot is an act in itself…

Question 19

R v Wilcox

Answer 19

The defendant’s act must be the commencement of the execution of the intended offence; a step in the actual crime itself. In other words, the defendant “must have begun to perpetrate the crime “.

Question 20

R v Harpur

Answer 20

In assessing the conduct there must be a full evaluation in terms of time, place and circumstances “. Whst remains to be done is always relevant, but not determinative. The court is permitted to focus more on the quality of the defendants acts and not the time, place and circumstances in which they occurred, and less on abstract tests of preparation and proximity.

Question 21

R v Betts and Ridley

Answer 21

An offence where no violence is contemplated and the principal offender in carrying out the common aim uses violence, a secondary offender taking no physical part in it would not be held liable for the violence used.