Principles Of Criminal Law And Anatomy Of Crime Flashcards
What is the basic structure for criminal offences
Actus reus + men’s Rea - substantive defence - criminal offence
What is a result crime and an example
- crimes which have a consequence element as part of their actus reus
- murder
What is a conduct crime and an example
- crimes whose actus reus only contains a behavioural element
- fraud by false representation
What is actus reus
- action or conduct which is a constituent element of a crime
What is mens Rea
- the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of a crime
- state of mind
Name a case to do with continuing acts
- Fagen v metropolitan police commissioner [1969]
Fagen v metropolitan police commissioner
- def accidentally drove onto a Constable foot but then refused to move
When was the crime committed in Fagen?
- when he refused to move the car
- as it was then that actus reus and mens Rea were present
- this is a continuing act
What’s the leading case in complex single transaction
- thabo meli v R [1945]
Thabo Meli v R
- D attacked V then, believing he was dead. Rolled his body over a cliff.
- V died from exposure and not from the injuries sustained in the original attack
- had men’s Rea at the attack
- had actus reus when rolled off cliff
- a single transaction
What case developed the complex single transaction further
- Le Brun [1991]
Two reasons someone might act involuntarily
- loss of physical control
- automatism (which could be either sane or insane)
Causation
- an element of all result crimes
- has to be shown that the def behaviour was a factual cause and a legal cause of the consequence
What test do we use for factual causation
- but for test
What is the but for test
- test for factual causation
- D’s act cant be the cause of an event if the event would have occurred in the exact same was had D’s act never been done. Has to be proved that for D’s act or omission, the event would not have occurred - Smith & Hogans criminal law
Examples of application of the but for test:
- White
- Dalloway
- Broughton
What’s the basic test for legal causation
- significant contribution
What is significant contribution and where was it confirmed
- basic test for legal causation
- whether the D’s behaviours made a significant contribution to the result.
- confirmed in Cheshire - made clear there may be multiple legal causes of the same result
What might break the chain of causation
- intervening acts of third parties, or of the victim
