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Involuntary manslaughter - Coggle Diagram
Involuntary manslaughter
Unlawful Act Manslaughter
Dangerous Act
The reasonable man will have the same knowledge as the d
Dawson - gang robbed petrol station, attendant had heart attack, NG
Watson - threw rock into someone's window, v had heart attack, G, CoA
Objective Test
Confirmed in Newbury v Jones - pushed paving stone in the path of a train
Church test - must be an obvious risk of some harm resulting from the d’s acts
Reasonable man - “the unlawful act must be such as all sober and reasonable people would inevitably recognise must subject the other person to at least, the risk of some harm”
Ball - cannot instill mistake on the RM - he shot intending to frighten here not knowing there were bullets in it
Carey - no obvious risk, undiagnosed heart condition, v ran home not away from the gang
Caused Death
Causation - same as in murder
Le Brun - “when there is unlawful application of force and the eventual act causing death are part f the same sequence of events… does not serve to exonerate the d of liability”
Auguiste - firework thrown, in a rush elderly woman knocked over and died, liable as his act was the direct and substantial cause of death
Drug Cases
Rogers - v and d injected helped each other inject, played an active part
Dias - d gave the v the syringe of heroin, the v died there was no direct cause
Andrews - d injected 3 people with legally prescribed drugs, unauthorised administration of medicinal products
Dalby - supplied drugs but did not administer
Kennedy no. 2 - supplied drugs and made up the syringe, break in the chain as v injected himself
Cato - injected victim himself, was convicted
Unlawful Act
Must be a criminal act not a civil wrong
Franklin - 1883 - threw box into pier, swimmer below, tort - ‘tort is not enough to amount to manslaughter’
Must be an act omission
Lowe - charged with cruelty and neglect - GNM instead
Khan v Khan
Base crime must be proves (AR and MR)
Arobieke - no evidence of an assault
Lamb - pointing a gun and pulling trigger, assault, no fear of violence
Can be any offence
Mitchell - jump in queue knocking old man, knocked woman who died - LJ Staughton ‘can see no reason of policy for holding an act calculated to harm A cannot be manslaughter if it in fact kills B… criminality is the same’
Goodfellow - set fire to house, ‘no requirement that UA is directed at a victim or even a person’
Unlawful in itself not something that becomes unlawful
Jennings - possession of a knife
Mens Rea
Possible to be guilty of UAM for strict liability offences
Andrews
MR for the unlawful act
Gross Negligence Manslaughter
Obvious Risk of Death
Singh - manager of flats, CO poisoning, conviction would require circumstances which a reasonably prudent person would have foreseen a serious and obvious risk not merely of injury
an reasonable person would see possibility of death
Causing Death
Breach must cause the death
Normal rules of causation apply
Breach
Misra - doctor - a doctor will be told that grossly negligent treatment of a patient which exposed them to the risk of death, and caused it, would constitute manslaughter
Bateman- doctor - b did not send the woman to the hospital for 5 days after a homebirth went wrong
Bolam Test - fall below reasonable standard and is there a body of people who would have acted in that same way
In Bolam v Friern
Driver - Andrews - driving above speed limit and then overtook carelessly - Lord Atkin “simple lack of care as will constitute civil liability is not enough… a very high degree of negligence is required to be proved”
Professional - reasonably person performing the same activity
Litchfield - sailor
Adomako - anaesthetist
No allowances for inexperience - Nettleship v Weston
If a child is the centre of the case then the child will be judged based on the reasonable child - Mullin v Richards
Gross Negligence
This a question for the jury
D who is reckless may well be the more readily found to be grossly negligent to a criminal degree
Adomako, Lord Mackay - “d conduct depart from the proper standard of care incumbent on him… was such that it could be judged as criminal”
GN behaviour which d can demonstrate
Gross ignorance
Criminal intention
Criminal disregard for others safety
Andrews, Lord Atkin - “very high degree”
Intention or failure to avert a serious risk which went beyond mere inadvertence
Bateman, Lord Hewart - “suck disregard for life”
The conduct has fallen below the standard of the RM
AG ref no 2 of 1999 - jury can convict of GNM in the absence of any evidence as to the d’s state of mind
No real MR is required
Lord Mackay - “ the essence of the matter, which is supremely a jury question, is whether the conduct was so bad as to amount in their judgement to a criminal omission”
Duty
Adomako - breathing tube, under anesthetic, breach of duty led to death
Lord Mackay - “ordinary principles of negligence apply to ascertain if d had been in breach”
Caparo v Dickman - three tests
Proximity
Fair just and reasonable
Reasonably foreseeable
Foundation in negligence in civil law - Donoghue v Stevenson
Duty and fail causes omission
Wacker - lorry driver smuggled immigrants into UK no vents, owed duty - criminal liability will still be imposed on people even when they are engaging in criminal activity
Willoughby - set building on fire to get insurance money, G
Edwards - let children play in the train line and didn’t warn them when train was coming, G
Kite - “the dire forecasts became a reality with your complete failure to act”
Litchfield - unsafe course taken by sailor and cause death, G
Evans - heroin overdose, sent her to bed - “ a person has created or contributed to the creation of a state of affairs which he knows, or ought reasonably to know, has become life threatening, a consequent duty on him to act by taking reasonable steps to save the others life will normally arise”
Adomako is the leading case for GNM