Causation

• Causation

  Must be factual and legal
• Factual Causation

  • D can only be guilty if the consequences would not have happened 'but for' the d's actions
  • R v Pagett
• Legal Causation

  • D can be guilty if their conduct is more than a 'minimal' cause of the consequence
  • R v Kimsey
• Thin skull rule

  • The D must take the victim as they find them
  • Factor which makes crime more serious e.g. illnesses
  • R v Blaue
• Intervening acts

  • Chain of causation - must be a direct link between D's conduct and the consequence
  • Sometimes something happens between the d's action and the consequence which breaks the chain of causation
  • E.g. D injures someone but the ambulance crashes on the way to the hospital and kills the victim
  • In order to break the chain of causation the intervening act needs to be sufficiently serious and independent of the D's act.
• Medical Treatment

  • Unlikely to break chain of causation unless it is so independent from the D's act
  • R v Jordan
• Life supporting machines

  • Switching off does not break chain of causation when the patient is brain-dead
  • R v Malcherek
• Victims own act

  • If the victim acts in a reasonably foreseeable way, then an injury occurs it will be caused by the D
  • R v Roberts