UNLAWFUL ACT MANSLAUGHTER

Question 1

THERE MUST BE AN UNLAWFUL ACT

Answer 1

• Must be a positive act and not an omission (Lowe)
• Must be a crime (Lamb)
• Can be any crime (Larkin) including property crime (Goodfellow, Newbury & Jones)
• Need not be aimed at V (Mitchell)

Question 2

THE UNLAWFUL ACT MUST BE DANGEROUS

Answer 2

• Dangerous = objective test: An unlawful act is dangerous if the sober and reasonable man would recognise that D’s act subjects another to the risk of some harm (Church)
• Burglary may be dangerous if apparent to the reasonable man that D old and frail (Watson)
• D does not need to realise the risk of harm, or specific type of harm (JM & SM)

Question 3

CAUSING DEATH

Answer 3

(A) Factual causation: ‘but for’ D’s unlawful act V would not have died (White)
(B) Legal causation: D’s unlawful act is the substantial cause of the V’s death (Corion-Auguiste)
- it need not be the sole cause of death (Shohid)
- if D injects V with drugs and causes death, then he is liable for UAM (Cato)
- where D supplies drugs to the V but V voluntarily injects themselves, V has broken the chain of causation (Kennedy)
- can be a series of unlawful acts, no need to establish what the actual cause of death was (AG’s Ref 4 of 1980)

Question 4

MR OF THE UNLAWFUL ACT

Answer 4

• D must have men’s rea for the unlawful act; D need not know the act is unlawful or dangerous (Newbury and Jones)
• D does not require any additional men’s rea for the death