Unlawful Act Manslaughter [Fatal Offences]

Question 1

What is UAM?

Answer 1

UAM is an offence in which a D intends to commit one offence but the victim dies.

Question 2

What is the FIRST part of the Actus Reus?

Answer 2

The D must have committed an unlawful act (Lamb) and not an omission (Lowe). It can be any type of crime but any type of civil wrong will not be enough (Franklin).

Question 3

What is the SECOND part of the Actus Reus?

Answer 3

The act must have been objectively dangerous. The test was set out in R v Church as when ‘all sober and reasonable people would recognise the act carries the risk of some harm, albeit minor’.

The reasonable person does not need to foresee the risk of death (Birstow) and it is possible the reasonable person could foresee a risk of harm from property damage (Goodfellow).

The reasonable person can only foresee the risk of physical harm, not psychiatric. However, physical harm does include internal injuries. For the reasonable person to be able to foresee internal harm, the age and frailty of the victim needs to be considered (Dawson).

Question 4

What must be considered AFTER the Actus Reus?

Answer 4

Causation

Question 5

What about the issue of drugs?

Answer 5

If D injects the victim with drugs, then the chain of causation will not be broken (Cato). However, if D supplies the victim with drugs and they inject themselves, then this will break the chain of causation as the victim had free will (Kennedy [No.2]).

Question 6

What is the MENS REA?

Answer 6

To satisfy the mens rea of UAM, the D only needs to satisfy the mens rea of the original unlawful act (DPP v Newbury and Jones).