Murder

Introduction:

Murder is a common law offence, defined by judges through case law as 'the unlawful killing of a human being under the queen's peace, with malice aforethought'. The actus reus is to kill someone under the queens reace, and the mens rea is to do this with direct intent ('malice aforethought'). Mohan: 'a decision to bring about the consequence no matter what the accused desired'. DPPv Smith: 'in murder there is intention to kill or cause GBH'. Smith: 'GBH is really serious harm'

Case examples:

Murder can be an ommission - GIBBINS & PROCTOR: Father had durty to feed daughter, he deliberately didn't feed her and was found guilty of murder.

- STONE & DOBINSON: Stone's elderly relative was staying with them. She died from malnutrition. As she was Stone's sister and they'd already undertaken some care, they owed her a duty to either help her themselves or seek help from someone else. Their failure to do so meant they'd breached their duty. Was originally convicted of murder for this reason but conviction was quashed.

'Unlawful'- VICKERS: D intended to inflict GBH and victo diead so was guilty of murder. Intent to inflict GBH is sufficient enough to imply malice aforethought.

Causation:

Factual; WHITE- D poisoned mother's drink but her actual cause of death was a heart attack. 'But for' D's actions, V would still have died so he can't be the factual; cause of her death. Wasn't convicted of murder but was instead charged with attempted murder.

PAGETT- D held a girl in front of him as a human shield from police firing…