Fatal Offences - Unlawful Act Manslaughter (involuntary Manslaughter)

Question 1

Order

Answer 1

An unlawful act, unlawful act must be dangerous, causing death, MR of the unlawful act

Question 2

There must be an unlawful act

Answer 2

Must be a positive act or omission(Lowe)
Must be a crime(Lamb)
Can be any crime(Larkin), including property crime(Goodfellow,Newbury&Jones)
Need not be aimed at V(Mitchell)

Question 3

The unlawful act must be dangerous

Answer 3

Dangerous=objective test-an unlawful act is dangerous if the sober man would recognise that Ds act subjects another to the risk of some harm(Church)
Burglary may be dangerous if apparent to the reasonable man that D was old and frail(Watson)
D does not need to realise the risk if harm, or specific type of harm(JM&SM)

Question 4

Causing death - causation

Answer 4

Factual causation - but for Ds unlawful act V wouldn’t have died (White)
Legal causation - Ds unlawful act is the substantial cause of the Vs death (Corion-Auguiste)

Question 5

Causing death

Answer 5

It need not be the sole cause of death(Shohid), If D injects V with drugs and causes death, then he is liable for UAM(Cato), Where D supplied drugs to V but V voluntarily injects themselves,V has broken the chain of causation(Kennedy), Can be a series of unlawful acts, no need r+to establish what the actual cause of death was(AGs ref 4)

Question 6

MR of the unlawful act

Answer 6

D must have the MR for the unlawful act; D need not know the act is unlawful of dangerous(Newbury and Jones)
D need not require any additional MR for the death