Strict Liability

• Strict liability offences


  Offences where MR is not required in respect of at least one aspect of the AR
• Callow v Tillstone

  • Vet Assured that meat it was alright to eat and butcher offered it for sale, but it was unfit
  • Butcher was guilty even though he had taken reasonable care not to commit the offence.
• Winzar v Chief constable of Kent

  • D was taken to hospital and examined by doctors found that he was not ill but was drunk, told to leave hospital but was found. Police called.
  • Charged him with being found drunk on highway country to section 12 of the licensing act 1872. Conviction was upheld by divisional court
• Harrow LBC v Shah and Shah (1999)

  • d’s own a news agent - told not to sell tickets to under 16 and one of their staff sold a ticket to a 13-year-old without asking proof of age mistakenly believed he was 16
  • The offence did not require any mens rea.
• Alphacell Ltd v Woodward

  • Company charged with causing polluted matter to enter a river
  • Offence held by HOL to be one of strict liability and company found guilty because it was of the upmost public importance that rivers shall not be polluted