Unlawful Act manslaughter

• Also known as constructive manslaughter - Defendant does not have the intent to cause GBH or kill.
• Must be an unlawful act ( Lamb )
• An omission is not enough to create liability ( Lowe )
• Must be a criminal offence not civil ( Franklin )
• All sober and reasonable people must realise some risk of harm - act must be dangerous on an objective test ( Church )
• Harm only needs to be some harm - not serious harm ( Larkin )
• The act doesn't need to be aimed at the victim ( Mitchell )
• The act can be directed at property ( Goodfellow )
• Risk of harm can include suffering shock ( Dawson )
• Factual causation - But for test ( Pagett )
• Legal causation - More than a minimal cause - substantive and operative cause of death ( Kimsey )
• Thin skull rule - must take the defendant how you find them ( Blaue )
• If the act didn't kill the victim then the defendant is not liable ( Carey )
• Intervening Acts:

  3rd party

  natural but unpredictable

  V's own acts ( Roberts )

  V's self neglect/suicide ( Wallace )

  Life support ( Malcherek )

  Drug cases (Cato=liable, Dalby=Not liable )

  Medical treatment ( Jordan )
• the defendant only need the Mr for the act itself ( Newbury v Jones )