Gross negligence manslaughter

• Introduction:

  • D owes V a duty of care but breaches duty in a negligent way causing Vs death
  • Civil and criminal liable
  • Act or omission on a lawful event
  • Adomako - anesthetist failed to notice oxygen was failing - failure to react was 'abysmal'
• Duty of care:

  • Well-known principle
  • Ordinary principles of civil principle apply to help ascertain whether breached (Donoghue)
  • R v Singh - duty to maintain the property properly
  • Whereas Evans - V self-administered, responsibility to phone emergency services
  • Food - R v Zaman - duty to customers
  • R v Heath - mother repurposed inhaler, son died - duty
  • R v Grey - duty of road users
• Breach of duty:

  • Once duty is established, must establish breach
  • Jury must consider objectively what a competent person fulfilling the same role as the defendant (RP test)
  • Comparison of competent
  • Not negligent if not contrary
• Causing a death:

  • Must establish factual and legal causation
  • Must have a more than minimal cause of death
• Deserving of criminal punishment:

  • Duty and death will not inevitably lead to criminal liable
  • Mirsa and Srivastava - 'mistakes and errors of judgement are nowhere near enough for a crime
  • Circumstances of the breach must be truly exceptionally bad and sp reprehensible as to justify the conclusion that is amounts to GN
  • For jury to decide - MR makes the offence
  • Doherty - 'culpable negligence of a grave kind'
  • Circulatory - convict if behavior is criminal
  • Breach of A7? - Mirsa