Unlawful Act Manslaughter
- Created by: Hayley Petts
- Created on: 20-05-14 21:19
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- Unlawful Act Manslaughter
- Definition
- defendant must do an unlawful act
- unlawful act must be dangerous on an objective test
- act must have caused the death
- D must have required mens rea for unlawful act
- Unlawful Act
- A civil wrong is not enough - Franklin (1883)
- Lowe (1973) - an omission cannot create liability for unlawful act manslaughter
- willful neglect and manslaughter of baby son
- Lamb (1967) - pointing of gun not assault as friend did not fear violence
- Dangerous act
- Church (1966) - reasonable and sober person should recognised some harm could result
- Larkin (1943) - women killed when fell on to cut - throat razor blades
- mnsl upheld as threatening to assault man and objectively dangerous as someone likely to be injured
- Mitchell (1983) - D hit man in post office who fell onto 89 yr old women
- transferred malice - D objectively dangerous
- Action can be against property - Goodfellow (1986)
- set fire to council house and killed 3 people
- Dawson (1985) - Ds at petrol station with masks, sticks + fake gun - attendant died of heart attack
- cause of fear not enough - D must but V at risk of physical harm
- conviction quashed as reasonable man not aware of condition
- Watson (1989) -D broke into home of 89 year old man who had hart attack 90 mins later + died
- Conviction quashed on causation point
- burglary could be a dangerous act as old man's fragility would be obvious to reasonable man
- Causing the death
- Cato (1976) - D + V prepared heroin syringes and injected each other - V died
- convicted of manslaughter based on unlawful act under s23 OAPA 1861
- V died from effects of injection
- convicted of manslaughter based on unlawful act under s23 OAPA 1861
- Dalby (1982) - supplied drug to person who self injected
- conviction quashed as self injection breaks chain of causation
- Kennedy (2007) - HL agreed same view
- Rogers (2003) - held tourniquet around man's arm - man self-injected and died
- guilty under s23 OAPA 1861
- CA held that it was 'artificial and unreal' to separate the tourniquet from the injection
- Cato (1976) - D + V prepared heroin syringes and injected each other - V died
- Mens rea
- D must have mens rea for unlawful act
- not necessary to prove D foresaw any harm of his act
- Newbury and Jones (1976) - pushed paving stone onto passing train
- young age of boys not relevant and no need to show they foresaw death
- Definition
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