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Unlawful and Dangerous Act Manslaughter - Coggle Diagram
Unlawful and Dangerous Act Manslaughter
Unlawful and dangerous act manslaughter arises where a criminal has set out to commit a less serious offence but has, in the process of committing the offence, killed a person.
Example would be where the planned offence was a bank robbery, but a bank employee was killed.
Actus Reus
The actus reus has three elements:
1) The act must be unlawful
There must be an unlawful act- the offence cannot be committed by an omission.
In
R v Khan and Khan (1998)
the Court of Appeal held that for unlawful and dangerous act manslaughter there must be an act- an omission is not enough.
In
R v Lamb (1967)
the court held there was no unlawful act as no assault had been committed as the victim did not apprehend immediate unlawful personal violence.
In
R v Franklin (1883)
the court held that for constructive manslaughter there must be an unlawful act. The unlawful act must constitute a criminal offence and a civil wrong is not enough.
2) It must be dangerous
The unlawful act must be dangerous; an objective test was discussed in
R v Church (1966)
where the defendant had acted unlawfully towards the victim in a way that a sober and reasonable person would appreciate involved risk of injury to the victim.
In
Dawson
it is stated that the unlawful act must be sufficient to cause actual physical injury. Emotional or mental shock is not enough on their own, though they will be relevant if they cause physical injury- by bringing on a heart attack.
In
R v Ball (1989)
, it was confirmed that whether an act was dangerous or not should be decided on a reasonable person’s assessment of the facts, and not on what the defendant knew.
A defendant who makes an unreasonable mistake is not entitled to be judged on the facts as he or she believes them to be.
R v Woolley & Campbell (2003)
An elderly man was harassed in the street. The victim had a weak heart and was so frightened that he had a heart attack.
The defendants were charged with manslaughter, and the judge told the jury they should convict only if they were satisfied the defendant’s behaviour as carrying a risk of injury.
3) It must have caused the death of the victim
There needs to be a proven link. This is of particular importance involving the death of a drug user.
In
R v Cato (1976)
the defendant supplied and assisted the victim to take a drug, which resulted in death. It was held that he had unlawfully administered a drug that caused death and so was guilty of manslaughter.
In
R v Kennedy (2007)
where the deceased was a fully informed and responsible adult, it was never appropriate to find guilty of manslaughter as the drug supplied had then been voluntarily self-administered by the deceased.
Mens Rea
The mens rea of unlawful manslaughter is that of the crime constituting the unlawful act, which may be intention or recklessness, depending on the definition of the particular offence.
In
R v JM & SM (2012)
the Court of Appeal confirmed it was not necessary for the defendant to foresee any harm, only that ‘reasonable and sober people’ would recognise that the unlawful activities subjected the victim to the risk of harm.
Criticisms of unlawful and dangerous act manslaughter
The mens rea for this offence can exist at a very low level. As seen in
Mitchell
.
The defendant may not have realised that there was the risk of harm, but because of the objective nature of the test as to whether an act is dangerous or not, he is still liable.
The Law Commission said in 2006: “the law is too generous to some who kill by reckless conduct”