criminla low A01

• Common Assault


  Act which causes the victim to apprehend the infliction of immediate unlawful force, requires intention or subjective recklessness as to causing another to fear immediate unlawful personal violence
• Assault can be indirect (Dume), and immediate is taken to mean imminent (Smith)
• Assault may include psychological harm (Ireland) and can be words (Constanza) but words may negate the threat (Tuberville)
• Battery


  Application of unlawful force to another person, requires intention or subjective recklessness as to applying unlawful physical force to another
• Battery may be indirect (DPP v K) and can be done by omission (Santa Bermudez) and can be a continuing act (Fagan)
• ABH


  Assault occasioning actual bodily harm, any hurt calculated to interfere with health or comfort (Miller) and must not be so trivial as to be wholly insignificant (Chan Fook), in the absence of good reason consent is no defence (Brown)
• GBH


  Unlawful wound, any GBH and requires malicious intent or recklessness as to some harm, need not be life threatening but serious (Sanders) and the severity is according to heath and age (Bollom), a wound is defined as a break in the skin (Eisenhower), may include severe psychiatric injury (Burstow) and HIV transmission (Dica)
• Theft


  A person will be guilty of theft if they dishonestly appropriate property belonging to another with the intention to permanently deprive the victim
• Appropriation concerns assuming the rights of the owner and includes taking and abandonment (Vinall), assuming the right to sell (Pitham and Hehl), the appropriation must occur in the country (Atakpu and Abrahams) and consent is not valid with deception (Lawrence)
• Land cannot be stolen except by a trustee or tenant, wild plants taken for commercial reasons are stolen and wild animals may be stolen when they are tamed, confidential information cannot be stolen (Oxford) and body parts can be stolen (Kelly and Lindsay)
• If another retains proprietary interest the owner can steal their own property (Turner) and if another retains equitable interest there is an obligation to return the property (Webster), however this is not the case for gambling as betting theft is not legally enforceable (Gilks)
• Test for dishonesty


  What was the defendant's actual state of knowledge, and would it be dishonest by ordinary standards? (Barton and Booth, Ivey V Genting)
• There is not dishonesty where the defendant believes that they have the right to deprive, the other would have consented if they knew or the owner cannot be found after taking reasonable steps or abandonment (Small)
• If an item is returned in its original state there is no intention to permanently deprive (LLoyd), if an exact copy of an item is returned there is still intention to permanently deprive e.g., cash (Velumyl)
• Robbery


  Completed theft, force or threat of force, on any person, immediately before or at the time of the theft, in order to steal, the mens rea of theft and the intention to use force to steal
• The theft must be complete (Waters) and the moment a theft is complete with force there is robbery (Corcoran), using force to escape is at the time (Lockley) and robbery is a continuing act (Hale), force included wrenching a bag from a hand (Clouden), accidental force while stealing is not robbery (Forrester)
• Burglary


  Entry into a building or part of a building, as a trespasser, with intention to steal, GBH or criminal damage (S9(1)(a)) or entry into a building as a trespasser and stealing or attempting to steal, commit GBH or attempt to commit GBH (S9(1)(b))
• The entry must be effective (Brown) and partial entry may be effective (Ryan) and entry can be to part of a building (Walkington), a building is any structure of considerable size that is permanent or meant to endure for a considerable time (Steven V Gourley), if the defendant has permission to be in the building, they are not a trespasser (Collins) but a person may become a trespasser if they go beyond what is reasonable (Smith and Jones)
• Murder


  Unlawful killing within any country of the realm of any creature in rerum natura under the king's peace with malice aforethought expressed or implied
• Murder can be by omission (Gibbins and Proctor) and a foetus cannot be murdered (A-G's ref. No. 3 1994), the defendant may have intent to kill or GBH (Vickers), foresight of consequences is evidence of intention (Moloney) and oblique intent may be shown if death or serious injury was a virtual certainty and the defendant appreciated this (Woollin)
• Loss of Control


  Voluntary manslaughter, the defendant's act must result from a loss of self-control, there must be a qualifying trigger which may be fear of serious violence to the defendant, or another identified person or a justified sense of being seriously wronged, and it must be considered how a person of the same age and sex would have reacted
• Loss of self-control need not be sudden but if not, it may be harder to prove, it does not include giving in to temptation (Cocker) or a loss of self-restraint (Jewel), fear for a brother (Ward), an attack causing fear of serious violence (Sian), sexual infidelity may not be relied upon alone another qualifying trigger is needed with it (Clinton), the reasonably abused 15-year-old boy (Camplin), other characteristics are only relevant to the situation's gravity (Jersey)
• Diminished Responsibility


  Voluntary manslaughter, the defendant must have suffered from an abnormality of mental functioning arising from a recognised medical condition, which impaired the ability to either understand the conduct, form rational judgements or exercise self-control, the impairment need not be total but more than minimal (Lloyd)
• Conditions included are chronic reactive depression (Sears) and battered woman syndrome (Hobson), intoxication may only be an abnormality when paired with another abnormality and the jury must decide if despite the alcohol the abnormality impaired the defendant's functioning (Dietschman), though alcohol dependence syndrome may be an abnormality (Wood)
• Gross Negligence Manslaughter


  Involuntary manslaughter, there must be a duty of care, the defendant breached that duty, caused death and a risk of death and the mens rea is gross negligence, a reasonably prudent person would have foreseen a serious and obvious risk of death not merely injury and it is a disregard of life and safety that amounted to a crime (Bateman)
• There can be no ex turpis causa (Wacker) and when concerning allergies, the defendant is only guilty if they knew of the defendant's condition (Zaman)
• Unlawful Act Manslaughter


  Involuntary manslaughter, the defendant must do an unlawful act which is objectively dangerous and causes the death, the defendant must have the required mens rea for the unlawful act they did not need to realise that death or injury may occur
• There must be a criminal unlawful offence not a tort (Lamb), it cannot be an omission (Lowe), the objective test for a dangerous act (Church) must be that a sober and reasonable person would inevitably realise the risk of some harm (Larkin), the unlawful act can be against property (Goodfellow), however, the risk of harm refers to physical harm something which causes fear and apprehension is not sufficient, if someone supplies drugs or performs preparatory acts to administer the drug but isn't the person to administer this is not an unlawful act due to free will (Kennedy), it must be proved that the defendant has the mens rea for the unlawful act, but it is not necessary to realise the act is unlawful or dangerous (Newbury and Jones)
• Defence


  Reduces the sentence from murder to manslaughter, found in s2 of the Homicide Act 1957
• Defence of diminished responsibility

  1. Defendant was suffering from an abnormality of mental functioning which arose from a recognised medical condition and substantially impaired the defendant's ability to: understand the nature of their conduct, form a rational judgement or exercise self-control

  2. Provided an explanation for their conduct

  3. Burden of proof is on the defendant on the balance of probability
• Abnormality of mental functioning


  A 'state of mind so different from that of an ordinary human being so that the reasonable man would term it abnormal' (Byrne)
• Recognised medical conditions


  Wide enough to cover psychological and physical conditions as well as any recognised mental disorder, must be proved with medical evidence in trial
• Substantially impaired


  Does not mean total, trivial or minimal, for the jury to decide (Lloyd)
• Intoxication alone


  Cannot support a defence of diminished responsibility (Dowds)
• Abnormality of mental functioning and intoxication


  The defence can succeed if the abnormality substantially impaired mental responsibility despite being intoxicated (Dietschmann)
• Alcohol dependency syndrome


  Can be an abnormality of mental functioning (Wood)
• Insanity (insane automatism)


  Burden of proving is on the defence and must be proved on the balance of probabilities, if successful there is a verdict of 'not guilty by reason of insanity'
• M'Naghten rules


  • Defendant must be suffering from: a defect of reasoning, which must be the result of a disease of the mind and which caused the defendant not to know the nature and quality of their act, or to know they were doing wrong
• Defect of reasoning


  The D's power of reasoning must be impaired – more than confusion (Clarke)
• Disease of the mind


  A legal term and can be a mental disease or physical disease which affects the mind (Kemp)