Law

The mens rea is the guilty mind, or the mental element of a crime. There are two types of mens rea, which are:  intention and recklessness. There are two types of intention, direct and indirect (oblique). Direct intention can be found if the jury decide that the defendant has done all in their power to bring about the consequence as held in Mohan. Indirect intent can be found where the jury decide that the consequences were virtually certain and that the defendant knew this when committing the act as held in Woollin. An illustration of this is the case of Matthews and Alleyne where the defendants knew that the victim could not swim, but threw him into water anyway. This satisfied the Woollin test for indirect intent.

The test for recklessness comes from the case of Cunningham, in this case the defendant ripped a gas meter from a wall, it was found that he was not reckless because he did not foresee the risk of poisoning from his act. The test for recklessness is did the defendant foresee the risk and go on to take it.

The mens rea can be transferred from…