Involuntary Manslaughter - Unlawful Act Manslaughter

• UAM


  Must be a completed criminal act (Lamb)

  An omission is not enough (Lowe)
• UAM - 2nd Requirement: UA is objectively dangerous

  Larkin:

  -> D doesn’t have to think the act is dangerous. if the reasonable man would say there was a risk of some harm, the act is dangerous.

  Test is whether a sober & reasonable person would foresee the risk of their act -

  R v JM and SM:

  -> it doesn’t matter what form the harm takes, as long as some harm is foreseeable.

  Mitchell:

  -> UA does not need to be aimed at the V, transferred malice.

  Goodfellow:

  -> UA can be aimed at property as long as the reasonable man could foresee some harm
• UAM - 3rd Requirement

  Unlawful act must case the death

  Normal rules of causation apply
• UAM - 3rd requirement - Causation

  Factual:

  White; Pagett

  Legal:

  Kimsey; Blaue; Smith; Cheshire; Malcherek; Jordan; Roberts; Williams and Davies
• UAM - 3rd Requirement - Johnstone


  D couldn’t be convicted of uAM because it was not clear whether it was the dangerous act that brought on the heart attack, and this caused the death of V.
• UAM - 3rd Requirement - problems proving causation…

  Particularly in drug cases.

  ->Cato

  ->Kennedy

  ->Evans
• UAM - 3rd Requirement - Cato


  Where D injects V = liable

  -> he has committed the unlawful dangerous act of ‘administering a noxious substance’
• UAM - 3rd Requirement - Kennedy

  HOL confirmed self-injection = voluntary intervening act which breaks the chain of causation
• UAM - 3rd Requirement - Evans

  Where D supplies V with drugs & V self-injects, this will break the chain of causation, so it is not UAM.

  HWVR - if D witnesses and overdose + fails to summon help = created a dangerous situation and this can be GNM
• UAM - final requirement - MR


  Newsbury and Jones

  -> D had the mens rea for the original unlawful act