Murder

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Explain

  • Murder is a common law offence meaning that there is no statutory definition
  • Unlawful killing of a human being under the queens peace with malice aforethought express or implied
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Actus Reus

  • Unlawful killing of a human being under the Queen's peace
  • Must be a positive act or omission which must cause the death directly or indirectly
  • Can be an omission if a duty exists eg. Duty to mitigate as in R v Miller or Gibbons and Procter
  • Unlawful killing - not lawful eg. execution, police shooting, self defence
  • Human being - AG Reference 3- start of life is when the baby is delivered, end of life is when the brain stem dies as in Malcherek
  • Under the Queen's peace- not soldiers in wartime
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Causation

  • Death must be caused by unlawful act of the defendant
  • Factual causation as in R v White - But for the defendants actions, the victim would not have died
  • Legal causation as in R v Pagett - more than a minimal cause but need not be the sole cause
  • Chain of causation must always remain intact so there can be no intervening act that breaks the chain
  • As a general rule medical treatment does not break the chain unless it is palpably wrong as in R v Jordan - in R v Cheshire the original wound was still the operating cause of death
  • Actions of the victim must be foreseeable as in R v Roberts and not daft as in R v Williams
  • Eggshell skull rule - R v Blaue
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Mens Rea

  • Malice aforethought, express or implied
  • Express = intention to kill
  • Implied = intention to seriously injure as in Cunningham
  • Direct intention = the result was D's aim, purpose and objective as in Mohen
  • Oblique intention = if killing was a virtually certain consequence and D saw it as virtually certain
  • R v Nedrick said that D must have realised that his actions were virtually certain to lead to death or serious injury
  • R v Matthews and Allayne said this was a substantive test, not evidential
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