Lecture 1- AR

Question 1

Lord Mustill’s definition of murder

Answer 1

It is sufficient to raise a prima facie case of murder (subject to entire or partial excuses such as self-defence or [loss of control]) for it to be proved that the defendant did the act which caused the death intending to kill the victim or to cause him at least grievous bodily harm

Question 2

Definition Case

Answer 2

Attorney-General’s Reference (No 3 of 1994)

Question 3

Old definition

Answer 3

“Murder is when a man of sound memory, and of the age of discretion, unlawfully killeth within any country of the realm any reasonable creature in rerum natura under the King’s peace, with malice aforethought, either expressed by the party or implied by law, so as the party wounded, or hurt, etc. die of the wound or hurt, etc. within a year and a day after the same.” (Coke’s Institutes, 3 Co Inst 47).

Question 4

Standard of proof

Answer 4

Beyond reasonable doubt

Question 5

What must be proven for murder? (3)

Answer 5

1.The act (conduct)
2.Intending to kill or cause GBH
3.The absence of a defence

Question 6

Actus Reus

Answer 6

Requires an omission or voluntary act

Question 7

Voluntary Act

Answer 7

Requires a voluntary exercise- autonomy or insanity not applicable

Question 8

Omission

Answer 8

The D may be liable only where a common law duty to act is found

Question 9

Duties+ Cases

Answer 9

Recognised relationships:
Gibbins and Proctor (1918)- Parental
Adomako [1994]- Medical

Contractual:
Pittwood (1902) 19 TLR 37

Voluntary assumption of responsibility:
R v Stone and Dobinson [1977]

Sinclair, Johnson and Smith [1998] (must be more than “a desultory attempt to be of assistance”.)

Creation of danger:
R v Miller [1983]
R v Evans [2009]

Question 10

Causation

Answer 10

To prove causation, it must be shown that the D was the factual and legal cause of death

Question 11

Factual Causation

Answer 11

Would the consequence specified in the actus reus have occurred but for the defendant’s behaviour?
(R v White)

Question 12

Legal Causation (2 requirements)

Answer 12

1.Cause must be “significant and operating” but not necessarily “substantial”: Smith (1959); Wallace (Berlinah) [2018]
the law says “significant” = more than minimal
2.There is no intervening act which breaks the chain of causation.

Question 13

Novus actus interveniens (2 requirements)

Answer 13

“The free, deliberate and informed intervention of a second person, who intends to exploit the situation created by the first but is not acting in concert with him, is normally held to relieve the first actor of criminal responsibility.” (Hart and Honore, Causation in Law 1985, p. 326)

(NB the intervention must also render D’s causal contribution no longer “significant and operating”.)

Question 14

Breaks in the chain of causation

Answer 14

1.The V’s actions (R v Kennedy)
2. Actions of a third party
3. Natural and unpredictable event

Question 15

Cases in which interventions are not ‘free, deliberate and informed’ (4)

Answer 15

1. Constrained acts of third parties.
   2.Medical practitioners at work.
   3.Reactions of V’s to D’s actions
   4.Acts of God

Question 16

Constrained third party acts

Answer 16

*R v. Pagett (1983)
Where a person, D, is not acting voluntarily, their ‘action’ will not be a novus actus interveniens. Where a person is acting in a way which is justified, their action is not free, voluntary, or informed.

‘As can be seen the Court of Appeal held in Pagett that an act done in the execution of a legal duty (being an act caused by the act of the accused) does not operate as a novus actus interveniens because as a matter of principle such an act cannot be regarded as a voluntary act, independent of the wrongful act of the accused.

Question 17

Liable medical practitioners

Answer 17

R v Jordan (1956)- Break in the chain
The treatment provided by the hospital was ‘abnormal’, ‘palpably wrong’, or ‘grossly negligent’. It should have been known by the doctor that the victim was intolerant to the antibiotic.

Question 18

Medical Practitioners- not liable (2 Cases)

Answer 18

R v Smith (1959)

It seems to the court that if at the time of death the original wound is still an operating cause and a substantial cause, then the death can properly be said to be the result of the wound, albeit that some other cause of death is also operating.

Putting it in another way, only if the second cause is so overwhelming as to make the original wound merely part of the history can it be said that the death does not flow from the wound.”

R v Cheshire [1991]
Even if more experienced doctors than those who attended the deceased would have recognised the rare complication in time to have prevented the deceased’s death, that complication was a direct consequence of the appellant’s acts which remained a significant cause of his death.

Question 19

R v. Wallace (Berlinah) [2018]

Answer 19

the doctors’ (lawful) conduct in carrying out with their hands what he could not carry out with his own was but one link in the chain of events instigated by the defendant and, notwithstanding the intervening act of Mr van Dongen and/or the doctors, the defendant’s conduct could fairly be said to have made a significant contribution to Mr van Dongen’s death.

Question 20

Victim’s Act

Answer 20

To break the chain of causation:

1.V’s actions constitute a “free, deliberate and informed” intervention

2.AND render D’s past contribution no longer operating and substantial

Question 21

Victim’s Reaction (Self-administration)

Answer 21

Kennedy (No. 2) [2007] Self-administration

When is it appropriate to find someone guilty of manslaughter where that person has been involved in the supply of a class A controlled drug, which is then freely and voluntarily self-administered by the person to whom it was supplied, and the administration of the drug then causes his death?”

The answer to the certified question is: “In the case of a fully-informed and responsible adult, never”

Question 22

Omission (Gross-neg)

Answer 22

R v Evans (2009)

For the purposes of gross negligence manslaughter, when a person has created or contributed to the creation of a state of affairs which he knows, or ought reasonably to know, has become life threatening, a consequent duty on him to act by taking reasonable steps to save the other’s life will normally arise.

Question 23

Reasonable Foreseeability (2)

Answer 23

R v. Roberts (1972)
The test is: Was [the victim’s reaction] the natural result of what the alleged assailant said and did, in the sense that it was something that could reasonably have been foreseen as the consequences of what he was saying or doing?’

1. It must be the natural result.
2. And reasonably foreseeable considering the D’s actions.

Question 24

Where it is not foreseeable

Answer 24

Was V’s act so “daft” as to be wholly disproportionate to D’s act? If so, it will break the chain.”

Question 25

Mental State of the V

Answer 25

R v Rebelo [2021]
If a person’s action is regarded as “fully free, voluntary and informed”, any consequences flows from the person’s decision and the defendant only ‘set the scene’ for the person to make that decision. The chain of causation is broken.

Question 26

‘Fully Informed’

Answer 26

R v Field [2021]
As he accepts, the victim’s uninformed state of mind in this example as to the accused’s real intention would have changed the nature of the undertaking on which the victim embarked, by rendering it more dangerous.

Question 27

Thin-skull Rule

Answer 27

R v. Blaue [1975]
Take your victim as you find them.
D will be liable if the victim has a pre-existing condition rendering him unusually vulnerable to physical injury

Question 28

Act of God

Answer 28

Hart [1986]
A freak of nature will break the chain of causation