Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Unlawful Act
Manslaughter
- Unlawful act
- Franklin (1883)
- A civil wrong is not
enough - there must be a
criminal offence.
- Lamb (1967)
- The defendant and victim were
playing with a revolver. Neither
thought the gun would fire when a
bullet was not opposite the barrel. D
accidentally shot V, killing him.
- There was no unlawful act -
the victim did not fear violence,
so there was no assault.
- Khan and Khan (1998)
- The defendants supplied a young prostitute with heroin, knowing
that she was a new user. She went into a coma, and the
defendants left the flat. When they returned the next day, she was
dead.
- The omission of not getting help was
not enough for unlawful act
manslaughter.
- Dangerous act
- Church (1966)
- "The unlawful act must be such as
all sober and reasonable people
would inevitably recognise the act
would subject the other person to
at least some harm" - Edmund
Davies LJ
- Larkin (1943)
- D threatened another man with a razor to
frighten him. The mistress of the other
man tried to intervene, but because she
was drunk, fell and landed on the blade,
cutting her throat and killing her.
- The act of threatening the
man with a razor was
unlawful and dangerous -
some harm was likely to be
caused as a result.
- Goodfellow (1986)
- D set fire to his house so the
council would rehouse him. The
fire spread, killing three people.
- The act can be aimed at property
as well as people.
- Dawson (1985)
- The three defendants attempted to rob a petrol
station. The station attendant had a heart attack
as a result and died.
- The risk of harm includes causing a person to suffer
shock,but not mere emotional disturbance.
- Act must cause death
- Corion-Auguiste (2004)
- D threw a firework into a crowded, enclosed
bus station causing people to rush for the
exits. In the panic, an elderly woman hit her
head and died.
- D's act was a "direct and
substantial" cause of the
death.
- Cato (1976)
- D and V prepared a mix of heroin and water, which
they both injected into each other.V died as a result.
- "Administering a noxious
substance" was the direct cause
of death.
- Kennedy (2007)
- D prepared a syringe for V to inject
himself with. V injected himself and died.
- V's act of injecting
himself broke the
chain of causation.
- Shohid (2003)
- D was part of a group of men who pushed V onto
a railway track. V was prevented from climbing
back onto the platform by the group of men, not
including D. He was killed by a train.
- Even though the
original act of D was
not the sole cause of
death, or even a main
one, it was significantly
serious to be the legal
cause.
- Mens rea for unlawful act
- Newbury and Jones (1976)
- Two teenage boys pushed a paving slab off of
a railway bridge as a train approached. It hit a
window and killed the guard.
- It did not matter that D did not
foresee that his act may cause
harm to another or know that his
act was unlawful.
- D must have realised what he was doing and had the
intention of doing it. The risk must have been obvious to
a reasonable adult of normal intelligence, but not
necessarily to D.