Unlawful Act Manslaughter

Question 1

Unlawful act

Answer 1

The unlawful act must be a positive act (Lowe)
The Va lawful act must be a crime (lamb)
Any crime can form the basis of unlawful act manslaughter (Larkin)
Can be a property crime (goodfellow)
Unlawful act does not need to be aimed at V (Mitchell)

Question 2

The unlawful act must be dangerous

Answer 2

The test for ‘dangerous’ comes from the church case and is an objective test
This can be shocked, not just fear/upset (Dawson)
D does not need to realise the risk of harm (Larkin) or the specific type of harm (jm& sm).

Question 3

What is the church test

Answer 3

An unlawful act is a dangerous one if the sober and reasonable man would recognise that the D’s act subjects another to the risk of some harm (does not have to be serious harm).

Question 4

Causation

Answer 4

Factual: ‘but for’ test (white)
Legal: more than minimal, operating and substantiating cause of death (smith).
It does not need to be the sole cause of death (shohid)
Can be a series of unlawful acts, no need to establish which was the acticel cause of death (AG’s ref No. 4 of 1980)
If D injects V with drugs and causes death, then he is liable (Cato)
If d supplies drugs to V but voluntarily injects themselves, V has broken the chain of causation and is not guilty (Kennedy)

Question 5

Intervening acts

Answer 5

Act of third party - (smith) - more than minimal operating and substantiating cause
Medical negligence - (Cheshire) - only extraordinary/unusual
V’s own actions - (Robert’s) - no if v’s actions were reasonably foreseeable
Act of god - none - very rare

Question 6

Levels of Mens Rea

Answer 6

Direct intent - D has a desired outcome in mind - (belfon) / (Mohan)
Oblique intent - must be a virtual certainty and D must realise this - (woolin)
Recklessness- risk of the consequence happening and decided to take the risk anyway - (Cunningham)
Negligence - D committed negligence which resulted in v’s injury / death - (adamako)

Question 7

Men’s Rea

Answer 7

D must have the necessary Mr for the unlawful act, is need not know the act is unlawful or dangerous (Newbury and Jones)
D does not require any additional Mr for the death
D does not even need to appreciate the risk of some physical harm, as the dangerous test is objective.