Violence - Discharging Firearm or Doing Dangerous Act Flashcards
What is s198 of the Crimes Act 1961?
Answer:
Discharging firearm or doing dangerous Act with intent.
What are the elements for s198(1) (a),(b),(c) Crimes Act 1961
Discharging firearm or doing dangerous Act with intent?
What is the penalty?
Answer:
- With intent
- To do grievous bodily harm
- Discharges any firearm, airgun, or other similar weapon at any person
Or - Sends or delivers to any person, or puts in any place, any explosive or injurious substance or device
Or - Sets fire to any property
Answer:
Max 14 years imprisonment
What are the elements for s198(1)(a) Crimes Act 1961
Discharging a Firearm with intent?
What is the penalty?
- With intent to do grievous bodily harm
- Discharges any firearm, airgun, or other similar weapon
- at any person
Answer:
14 years imprisonments
What are the elements for s198(1)(b) Crimes Act 1961
Doing Dangerous Act with intent?
What is the penalty?
Answer:
- With intent
- To do grievous bodily harm-
- Sends or delivers to any person or puts in any place, any explosive or injurious substance or device
What are the elements for s198(1)(c) Crimes Act 1961
Doing Dangerous Act with intent?
What is the penalty?
Answer:
- With intent
- To do grievous bodily harm-
- Sets fire to any property
Answer:
Max 14 years imprisonment
What are the elements for s198(2) Crimes Act 1961
Discharging firearm or doing dangerous Act with intent?
What is the penalty?
Answer:
- With intent
- To injure any person or with reckless disregard for the safety of others-
- Does any of the acts referred to in subsection (1) of this section
Answer:
Max 7 years imprisonment
Under s198 of the Crimes Act 1961
What is the case law for Grievous Bodily Harm?
Answer:
DPP v Smith
“bodily harm needs no explanation and grievous means no more and no less than really serious.”
What does grievous bodily harm mean?
Answer:
GBH can be defined as “harm that is really serious”
As long as the harm is serious it need not involve life threatening or permanent injury.
Define intent in relation to s198 CA 1961?
Answer:
Subsections (1) and (2) both relate to the same range of actus reus - discharging a firearm at a person, delivering explosives or setting fire to property
In subs(1) the intent is to cause grievous bodily harm In subs (2) the intent is only to injure the victim or acts with reckless disregard for the safety of others
What is the definition of actual bodily harm?
What is the relevant case law?
Answer:
Actual bodily harm may be internal or external, and it need not be permanent or dangerous.
Answer:
Case law is R v Donovan
“Bodily harm …includes any hurt or injury calculated to interfere with the health or comfort of the victim .. it need not be permanent, but must be more than merely transitory or trifling.
Define recklessness?
What is the relevant case law for recklessness?
Answer:
Acting recklessly involves consciously and deliberately taking an unjustifiable risk.
Answer:
R v Harney
“Recklessness means the conscious and deliberate taking of an unjustified risk. In NZ it involves proof that the consequence complained of could well happen together with an intention to continue in the course of conduct regardless of risk.”
When recklessness is an element What must be proved?
Answer:
- that the defendant consciously and deliberately ran a
risk (subjective test)
- That the risk was one that was unreasonable in the circumstances as they were known to the defendant (objective test - based on whether a reasonable person would have taken the risk)
In reckless disregard for the safety of others what is it NOT necessary to prove?
Answer:
While it is necessary to prove that the defendant foresaw risk of injury to others, it is not necessary that he recognised the extent of the injury that would result
What are the three optional forms of mens rea for s198 CA 1961?
Answer:
- Intent to do grievous bodily harm (GBH)
- Intent to injure
- reckless disregard for the safety of others
What are the three optional acts of actus reus for s198 CA 1961?
Answer:
- discharging a firearm at a person
- delivering explosives
- setting fire to a property
What is it not necessary to prove under s198?
Answer:
Unlike some of the other violence offences. It is not necessary to prove that the victim suffered actual bodily harm.
What is relevant is that the offender did one of the specified acts , with one of the specified intents.
Under s198(1)(a) CA 1961 is it sufficient for the prosecution to show a reckless discharge the weapon in the general direction of the person who happened to be hit?
Answer:
No it is not sufficient. There must be an intention on the part of the defendant to shoot at that person.
What case law relates to s198 CA 1961 relating to intent?
Answer:
R v Pekepo
“A reckless discharge of a firearm in the general direction of a passer-by who happens to be hit is not sufficient proof. An intention to shoot that person must be established.”
What is discharge?
Answer:
To discharge means “to fire or shoot”
Define the term firearm?
Answer:
Firearm and airgun are defined by section 2 Arms Act 1983
The primary difference being that a firearm acts by force of explosive and an airgun acts by force of compressed air or gas.
firearm—
(a)
means anything from which any shot, bullet, missile, or other projectile can be discharged by force of explosive; and
(b)
includes—
(i)
anything that has been adapted so that it can be used to discharge a shot, bullet, missile, or other projectile by force of explosive; and
(ii)
anything which is not for the time being capable of discharging any shot, bullet, missile, or other projectile but which, by its completion or the replacement of any component part or parts or the correction or repair of any defect or defects, would be a firearm within the meaning of paragraph (a) or subparagraph (i); and
(iii)
anything (being a firearm within the meaning of paragraph (a) or subparagraph (i)) which is for the time being dismantled or partially dismantled; and
(iv)
any specially dangerous airgun
Define sends or delivers?
Answer:
The terms sends or delivers take their ordinary meanings and may include situations where the victim receives a dangerous thing by mail or courier
Eg, such as in the case of a letter bomb
fine the term explosive?
Answer:
As defined by s2 of the Arms Act 1983
explosive—
(a)
means any substance or mixture or combination of substances which in its normal state is capable either of decomposition at such rapid rate as to result in an explosion or of producing a pyrotechnic effect; and
(b)
without limiting paragraph (a), includes gunpowder, nitroglycerine, dynamite, gun-cotton, blasting powder, fulminate of mercury or of other metals, coloured flares, fog signals, fuses, rockets, percussion caps, detonators, cartridges, and ammunition of all descriptions; and
(c)
without limiting paragraph (a) or paragraph (b), includes any device, contrivance, or article, which uses any substance or mixture or combination of substances to which paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) applies as an integral part of it for the purposes of producing an explosion or a ballistic or pyrotechnic effect; but does not include a firearm; and
(d)
does not include any firework as defined in section 2 of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996
What does injurious substance or device mean?
Answer:
It covers a range of things capable of causing harmto a person
E.g - a letter containing anthrax powder mailed to a political target
Under s198 CA 1961 When is the offence complete?
Answer:
When a firearm is discharged at a person under s198(1)(a)
It is not necessary for an explosion to happen under s198(1)(b). The offence is complete when an explosive or injurious substance or device is sent, delivered or put in place
The substance must have the capacity to explode or cause injury.
