Intro / General Principles 1-3 Flashcards
ACTUS REUS: act, an omission or a state of affairs
Conduct must be voluntary
Acts
Omissions
Duty may be imposed by
Hill v Baxter - attack by a swarm of bees would not be careless driving. Must be voluntary and conscious
(‘Automatism’ is the term applied where the act was not voluntary and conscious and it will be dealt with later in the course under ‘Defences’.)
Penile Penetration - SOA
Road Traffic Act
Statute (RTA), Office Holders such as Policemen - (R v Dytham), Contract /employment (R v Pittwood {the Train})
State of Affairs
Larsonneur (1933)
Winzar v CC of Kent
The actus reus was “being in the UK”.
Irrelevant how someone ended up drunk on the highway, it was an offence.
Circumstances
Usually requires prosecution to prove a prescribed circumstance.
Touching a minor in a sexual way is the circumstance of the offence under s7 SOA, as is handling stolen goods under the theft act
Consequences
- Criminal Damage is an outcome – without it you don’t have the criminal act required.
- Murder is a result crime – the act of killing of a human being under the queens peace.
- The Prosecution have to establish a link, or chain of causation between the defendant’s conduct and the result.
- The rules of causation therefore become crucial.
Crimes that don’t need a result, but do require conduct.
• Rape is a conduct crime.
CAUSATION
Causation requires 2 things.
FACTUAL CAUSATION
consider causation whenever you are explaining the actus reus of a result crime.
- Factual Casuation;
- Legal Causation
- The question to be asked is, but for the defendant’s conduct, would the result have occurred when it did.
- eg. F “but for” test not being satisfied because mother died of a heart attack not cyanide poison he administered – White [1910]
LEGAL CAUSATION
Principles
3 with authorities and cont. nxt slide
A. The culpable act must be more than a minimal cause (Bodkin - Doctor Morphine)
B. D’s act need not be the sole cause (Benge - Train Tracks) (Longbottom - deaf pedestrian actions of victim are not relevant)
C. The accused must take his victim as he finds him. (Hayward - Scared wife to death, despite medical condition) (Blaue - Jehovah’s witness refused blood)
D. Intervening acts and events (Novus actus interveniens).
2 and 3 over..
Most likely to be found in a :
- ‘free deliberate and informed intervention of a third party’or
- An ‘abnormal act or event’
- Victim Escaping (R v Roberts - Woman jumping from the car was reasonably forseeable) (williams v Davis - NOVUS if reaction so daft as to make it D’s own voluntary act)
- Neglect by the Victim (wall - if he puts another in danger, some unskilfulness kills him, no excuse) (Holland - refusal of treatment not a Novus) (Dear - would be liable if conduct was an operative and significant contribution)
iii) Drug administration cases.
iv) Intervention by a third party.
(Kennedy) a voluntary and informed descision to self administer a provided drug will break the chain of casation.
( Pagett - use of girlfriend as a shield her injury could be foreseen and it was a non voluntary act by police)
v) Improper or negligent medical treatment
However
Jordan 1956
Contrast with
Smith (1959)
Cheshire
Generally, the courts’ view has been that even if medical treatment is not of the highest order it will not break the chain of causation.
court considered that the chain of causation had been broken, as the victim had received ‘palpably wrong’ treatment at a time when the original wound had nearly healed.
if the second cause so overwhleming as to make the first part of history then chain broken.
It does not relieve the accused unless negligent treatment made the original act insignificant.
vi) Naturally occurring events.
Something forseeable
Will not break the chain (such as tide coming in)
Where as unforeseable - such as lighting will, as long as the person is not left in obvious danger.
A summary of causation
Causation needs to be considered in all result crimes.
- Consider factual causation (the ‘but for’ test) and then legal causation.
- Key principles relating to legal causation:
− The culpable act must be more than a minimal cause of the result;
− The culpable act need not be the sole cause of the result;
− The accused must take the victim as he finds him;
− Consider if the chain of causation is broken by:
- V escaping, neglect by V, self administration of drugs
- Intervention by a third party - Intervening acts are more likely to break the chain of causation if they are ‘free, deliberate and informed’
- Medical negligence – was the negligence so potent, or so overwhelming as to make D’s acts merely part of history?
- A natural event – only an ‘abnormal act or event’ or not reasonably foreseeable will break the chain of causation.
All the elements of actus reus have to be proved
Deller [1952]
Mistake as to the act/crime intended to maeke - not guilty of fraud
Coincidence of actus reus and mens rea
Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner [1969]
Mny cases would now be treated as Miller
General rule AR and MR must coincide at the same time.
Fagan clearly commits a batteryy driving onto police officers foot accidently, the actus, but did not at that time have the mens rea to be committed of a crime. The AR caught up with the MR when he then ommitted to remove the car. Continuing act.
Failure to counteract a danger created as a criminal omission.
Key points of Actus Reus
AR can be divided up into:
- An act or omission to act;
- A state of affairs;
- Any relevant circumstance(s) prescribed by the definition of the offence; and
- Any result/consequence prescribed by the definition of the offence.
- If a result crime, need to consider causation – see summary above.
D’s conduct must be voluntary.
Coincidence of actus reus and mens rea – D must possess the requisite mens rea at the moment he performs the actus reus.
