Unlawful Act MS

• u drink cows milk - unlawful act - dangerous - causation - mens rea
• There must be an unlawful act 
• Must be a criminal offence, a civil wrong is not sufficient (Franklin) 
• Must be a criminal act (Lamb) 
• Must be a physical act, omission is not enough (Lowe) 
• The unlawful act must be dangerous 
• Objective test - “sober and reasonable person must see a risk of some harm- albeit not serious harm” (Church) 
• Act does not need to be aimed at the victim, starting chain of events (Larkin) (Mitchell) 
• Act does not need to be aimed at a person (Goodfellow) 
• Risk of harm must be physical in order to be deemed dangerous (Dawson) 
• The unlawful act must cause death 
• Causation rules apply - the act must be physical and legal cause of death 
• For drug related cases: 

  If injection is voluntary, not guilty (Dalby) 

  Prepared injection, encouraged it, guilty at first but later quashed as self-injecting breaks the chain. 
• The defendant must have the mens rea for the unlawful act however does not need to foresee any harm (Newbury and Jones)