Actus reus

• In order for the actus reus to be established, it must be proved that the act was performed voluntarily. If it was an involuntary act, then this is usually not enough to secure a conviction, except in rare circumstances such as offences of strict liability.
• State of affairs offences

  These are offences that criminalises a defendant being found in a particular circumstance at a particular time, irrelevant of how they got there, thus they are an exception to the voluntary principle of actus reus. For example, being drunk on a public highway (Winzar)
• The state of affairs offence requires two elements; firstly, the defendant has to be present in the place where the prohibited activity takes place (the ‘place’ element) and secondly, the defendant has to have knowledge or suspicion that the prohibited activity will take place (the ‘knowledge’ element).