Mens Rea & Actus Reus Flashcards
Venna [1976] QB 421
MR of assault
Mens rea of assault: D intended or was reckless that the victim would apprehend imminent unlawful force ( Recklessness is sufficient for MR of assault)
D violently resisted arrest for causing a disturbance, fracturing the hand of a police officer in the process
D was convicted with assault occasioning actual bodily harm
D appealed on the basis that the judge erred in directing that recklessness in applying physical force was sufficient
R v Thabo Meli [1954] 1 WLR 228, [1954] 1 All E.R. 373
Contemporaneity
Acts part of a pre-conceived plan are considered a connected sequence, thus the act inflicting the final blow to the victim need not coincide in time with the mens rea
n Lesotho – ex Basutoland- UK Privy Council was the final appeal court): 4 defendants convicted of murder by the High Court of Basutoland appealed to PC. They had a pre-ordained plan to kill a man in a hut and make it look like an accident. Post-Mortem reveals the victim had not died from the blow but from exposure when unconscious after being rolled down from the hill. Problem of contemporaneity:
The first act (hitting on the head) had MR but no AR
The second act (rolling down the hill) had AR without MR
Appeal dismissed: “it’s impossible to divide what was really one series of acts in this way” => continuing act
Fagan v MPC [1969] 1 QB 439, [1968] 3 W.L.R. 1120
Contemporaneity
D can be guilty of a battery even though mens rea was not present at the inception of his guilty act but later arose as the act continued
Contrast this case with Miller: here the failure to remove the car from the constable’s foot was deemed part of a continuing act, while in Miller the failure to prevent the fire from spreading was deemed an omission but Miller was nonetheless guilty as he had a duty to act – they are different ways of reaching the same goal of finding the defendant guilty
R v Miller [1983] 2 AC 161, [1983] Crim LR 466
Omission - contemporaneity
if you initiate a source of danger (voluntarily or not) to the interests of others then you have the duty to take reasonable steps to avert the danger.
Homeless man finds a large building sleeps on a mattress falls asleep while smoking. The mattress takes fire. He flees the building and the building burns down => charged with criminal damage and arson
R v Church [1966] 1 QB 59
Contemporaneity
The principle in R v Thabo Meli [1954] 1 WLR 228 applies to manslaughter – the mens rea need not exactly coincide with the act causing death if the act is part of a connected series of acts which at some point of time coincided with the mens rea
=> C convicted for manslaughter
D was knocked the victim unconscious during a fight
D dumped her body in the river, thinking that she was already dead
Medical examination showed that D died from drowning
The judge directed the jury to consider the ‘whole course of conduct of the accused as one’
Edmund Davies J : To establish constructive/unlawful act manslaughter, the risk of harm have been capable of being foreseen by sober and reasonable people
R v Cunningham [1957] 2 QB 396
Recklessness (subjective)
See R v G and others
Conviction quashed : the test for malice was = whether the defendant had either actual intent to cause harm or was reckless as to the possibility of causing foreseeable harm.
Cunningham removed a gas meter to steal the money inside. His act caused a gas leak that resulted in a neighbour being poisoned. He was charged with violating s23 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 that criminalised the unlawful and malicious administration of a noxious substance to another person.
The trial judge explained the word “maliciously” to mean general wickedness. Because of that, the mens rea for the crime was deemed present, and he was convicted.
R v Caldwell [1982]
Recklessness (objective)
no longer law
Court held that he was reckless = applying an objective conception of recklessness (not what D chose to do but rather what a reasonable person would choose to do.)
Got drunk and set fire to the hotel. Claimed that he did not choose to cause harm to any hotel guest.
Elliot v C (A Minor) [1983] 2 All ER 1005
recklessness (objective)
no longer law (rejected in R v G and others)
conviction upheld ( it was a foreseeable risk for a ‘reasonably prudent man’ )
A 14-year-old schoolgirl of low intelligence, tired and hungry, spilt some inflammable spirit and dropped a lighted match on wooden floor of garden shed
D was charged under Criminal Damage Act s1(1) for reckless arson
The High Court held that D was not guilty as she had no knowledge of the risk of her actions and even if she had thought about it, the risk would not have been obvious to her
R v Kingston [1994] 3 WLR 519
intoxication (involuntary) - MR
intoxication is no defence if MR was present, even if the MR was induced by intoxication =>
Kingston had a business dispute with a couple. They employed Penn to gain some damaging information on Kingston in order to blackmail him. Kingston was homosexual with paedophiliac predilections. Penn invited a 15 year old boy to his room and gave him a soporific drug in his drink. The boy remembers nothing from the time of sitting drinking the drink on Penn’s bed until waking the next morning. Penn then invited Kingston to the room and drugged his drink without his knowledge. Penn and Kingston then both engaged in gross sexual acts with the unconscious boy. Penn recorded the events and took photographs. Kingston was charged with indecent assault on a youth.
CONVICTED at 1st instance => quashed on appeal => reinstated at the HoL
R v Allen [1988] Crim LR 698
Intoxication (Voluntary)
=> ignorance as to strength is no excuse for voluntary intoxication
Mr Allen consumed homemade wine that unknowingly to him was much stronger than he initially thought. As such, it had a much stronger effect on him than he anticipated. He sexually assaulted a person while under the influence of alcohol. He relied on the defence of involuntary intoxication and pleaded that he could not be responsible for his actions.
DPP v Beard / DPP v Majewski
basic intent - specific intent - intoxication
Beard: conviction quashed as murder is a crime of SI and he did not form the MR
‘In a charge of murder based upon intention to kill
or do grievous bodily harm, if the jury are satisfied
that the accused was, by reason of his drunken condition, incapable of forming the intent to kill or do
grievous bodily harm… he cannot be convicted of
murder.’ Lord Birkenhead
Majewski : crime of BI => convicted ( if D would not have foreseen sober not convicted : it is not a defence that the accused’s inhibitions were weakened by drink so that he committed an offence which he would not have committed if sober. Lawton LJ)
Arthur Beard raped and killed 12-year-old Ivy Wood in Hyde, Cheshire. During the act of rape, he placed his hand on her throat and the other one on her mouth, resulting in death from suffocation. The Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) filed a suit against Mr. Beard, and he was convicted of murder. The contention was that Mr. Beard had raped and murdered the victim in a state of intoxication and that this shall be punishable under the charge of murder. Mr. Beard contended that he was so drunk he was unable to comprehend the severity of his actions and claimed that being convicted for the crime of murder was very different and independent from the intended act of rape.
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In DPP v. Majewski,11 Mr. Majewski had taken a substantial quantity of drugs over a 48-hour period. He then went to a pub and had a drink. He got into a fight with two others. The landlord went to break up the fight, and Mr. Majewski attacked him. When the police arrived, he assaulted the arresting officer and then struck another officer when he was being driven to the police station. The next morning, he attacked a police inspector in his cell. He was charged with four counts of occasioning actual bodily harm and three counts of assaulting a police constable in the execution of his duty. Mr. Majewski claimed he had no recollection of the events because of his intoxication. He was found guilty on all counts and appealed, contending that he could not be convicted when he lacked the mens rea of the offenses owing to his intoxicated state.
R v Hardie [1985] 1 WLR 64
Intoxication (volunatry)
If:
(1) crime of basic intent
(2) substance not known to be dangerous
(3) D was reckless / aware of the effects on him/her.
= >not convicted
Held: The appeal was allowed
The defendant set light to a wardrobe after consuming some out of date valium tablets which had been prescribed to his partner. He took the valium tablets as he was feeling stressed as his partner had asked him to leave their home. He was charged with arson at his trial he stated that he remembered nothing of starting the fire due to his intoxicated state but accepted that he must have started it as he was the only one in the room when it started. The trial judge directed the jury that as the defendant had voluntarily consumed the valium, his intoxication could be no defence to the crime committed. The defendant appealed.
R v Latimer (1886) 17 QBD 359
canadian case
The defendant was liable for the injuries inflicted on the woman despite the fact that he did not intend to harm her. The mens rea he had to cause harm to the man was transferred to the woman..
The defendant got into a fight in a pub with another man. He took off his belt and hit the man with the belt. The belt ricocheted off and hit a woman in the face.
