4. VOLUNTARY DUTY

• A duty which has been taken on voluntarily can give rise to actus reus where the duty is not carried out.
• R v STONE AND DOBINSON (1977)

  Stone's elderly sister came to live with the defendants. She became ill and unable to care for herself and later died and the two defendants were convicted of manslaughter. As the deceased was Stone's sister he had a duty to care for her. The duty was to either help her themselves or to summon help from other sources. Their failure to do either of these meant that they were in breach of their duty. This formed the actus reus of the crime
• R v EVANS (2009)

  The victim was a 16 year old heroin addict who lived with her mother and older half sister. The half sister brought some heroin and gave it to the victim who injected the drug herself. It became obvious that she overdosed but neither the mother not the half sister tried to get medical help. They put her to bed and hoped she would recover but she died. The mother owed a duty to care for her daughter. The half sister had created a situation which she knew was life-threatening and therefore owed her a duty