Actus Reus consequence and their causes

Result Crime
o Third element in actus reus concerns result crimes only
o Crimes do not require proof of harm known as conduct crimes
o They require proof only of some form of wrongful conduct
o For example, they drive too fast or aggressively, ignore traffic lights or road signs, or
overtake while driving round a blind corner
o A conviction does not require anybody to be hurt for there to be an accident
o Result crimes, however require both wrongful conduct and harm so the crime of
causing death by dangerous driving both dangerous driving and a death
o Crucially however the prosecution must also prove causation
o In other words, it must prove that the victim met their death as a result of the
defendant driving dangerously
o For all result crimes the prosecution bears the burden of proving that the
defendant’s conduct caused the prohibited result
o In murder of manslaughter this will be death and in criminal damage it will be the
damage done to the property in malicious wounding it will be wound
o Prosecution’s task becomes harder when the event contributes to a result

Accountability
o Basic rule of thumb is that where a person’s voluntary act initiates a casual sequence
which ends in a harm
o Person will normally be held accountable unless an act or event later transpires
which renders a finding of accountability inappropriate
o D’s act is voluntary in the sense of being under the physical and mental control of D
o D’s act is the first link in a chain of events which results in V’s injury
o D is therefore accountable for that injury unless a later act or event occurs which
renders finding of accountability inappropriate

Principle governing causation

o Causation involves a two-part inquiry
o First part concerns how casual consequences begin while the second part concerns
how once begun a casual sequence may come to an end
o To be held accountable for a consequence involves being both the factual cause and
also the legal cause of that consequence

Factual Cause
o Hart and Honore describe factual cause as; an event or act which makes the
difference between something happening and not happening
o An act is the factual cause if the consequence would not have happened but for the
act
o An omission is the factual cause if the consequence would not have happened but
for the defendant’s failure to act as they should not have done
 o In R v White he was not held accountable for the death of his wife whose drink he
had poisoned when she died of the heart attack before taking the poison however
this might have not been the case if the poison was the reason for the heart attack
o R v Morby is the case for omission
o In Dyson a child was beaten up by his father which resulted him being in a hospital
and at the time of his hospitalization the child was suffering through meningitis
o The child died of his injuries medical evidence showed that he would have died of
meningitis before long D was charged and convicted of manslaughter, he appealed
on the ground that he was not the factual cause as he would have died of the
disease anyways
o Court held that it was not necessary to show that D was the sole cause of death so
long as his action accelerated the time when death would have otherwise occurred

Legal Cause
o Factual cause will also be the legal cause of the consequence unless the factual cause
is too insubstantial or remote to render
o Judgement made by court is not scientific as it is with factual cause it is more of a
moral judgement

Principles of application
o Legal cause of criminal harm the consequence must be the consequence not merely
of the defendant act of their wrongful act
o A is charged with causing B’s death by dangerous driving and A does kill B by running
him over in her car while dangerously driving this does not necessarily mean that A is
guilty of causing death by dangerous driving
o The crime is causing death by dangerous driving not causing death while driving
dangerously

Problem Cases
o McKechnie was a case where D beat up an elderly man V, who suffered very serious
head injuries and remained unconscious for weeks
o V died as a result of the ulcer bursting D was convicted and appealed inter alia on
the direction as to causation
o The COA upholding his conviction ruled that D was still the cause of V’s death since
the doctor’s decision not to operate was due to the effects of the initial beating

o Victim’s death is triggered by a combination of the defendant’s unlawful act and

their own physical or mental vulnerability

o In Hayward D chased the victim who was his wife and threatened with death who
unknowingly had a weak heart and suffered through a heart attack and died where
the court applied eggshell skull rule and said D’s casual for resultant harm is not
deflected if V has a condition such as a fragile as an eggshell which render them
especially likely to suffer injury or die

Supervening acts of third parties

Acts of third exacerbating the harm
o In Smith where the victim died of a stab wound to the lung but not before he had
been dropped before reaching medical attention and had received artificial
respiration which is not good for someone with a punctured lung
o Smith was still the legal cause of V’s death

Acts of third parties reacting to a danger caused to a danger caused by A’s act
o In Pagett where D used his girlfriend as a human shield against police to prevent
them from arresting him
o As a result of this act the girlfriend died as a result of the police firing
o He appealed against this conviction where the COA disagreed

Medical Interventions
o In Cheshire and Smith
o In Cheshire where D was shot in the abdomen where he was operated on and almost
immediately suffered through breathing difficulties
o Later his injuries were healed however died due to shortness of breath
o The doctors failed to recognize and respond to the cause V’s problems which was
that the tracheotomy had been negligently been performed

Supervening acts of the victims

o In Holland V following a serious assault with an iron bar, refused to submit to the
amputation of a finger recommended to prevent tetanus
o D was held to be casually responsible for V’s resultant death from tetanus
o In Blaue D Stabbed V, causing serious blood loss
o Doctors treating V told her she needed a blood transfusion else she would die
o V refused the transfusion for religious and died of blood loss

Escape Attempts
o In Roberts V jumped out of a moving car in reaction to being sexually assaulted by D
in the car
o COA ruled that D was the cause of V’s injuries as D’s act began the casual chain and
her reaction was reasonably foreseeable
o The court also stated that the chain of causation would be broken only by the victim
doing something ‘daft’
o In William and Davis on similar facts except that the result was the death of the
escaping passenger, a slightly different test was used namely whether V’s response
was within the range of responses which might be expected from a victim ‘placed in
the situation which he was’

Suicide
o V commits suicide as a result of D having raped, maimed or physically abused them,
is D casually responsible for V’s death
o In Dhaliwal a case involving suicide following a long period of domestic abuse, the
COA acknowledged that suicide could be triggered (and caused) by the most recent
unlawful attack
 o If the suicide was simply a response to the defendant’s abusive behavior, he would
not be responsible for her death
o R v Wallace the defendant threw concentrated sulfuric acid over her former lover
while he was sleeping
o Two years later he checked into euthanasia clinic in Belgium where euthanasia is
legal and his life was terminated
o He could not continue to live his injuries and the pain to which he was still subject
o Defendant was charged with murder and the trial judge refused to allow the
question of causation to be considered by the jury on the ground that there was too
long a delay between the act and the death
o Jury convicted of throwing corrosive fluid on a person, with intent to do GBH an
offence under S.29 of the OAPA 1861

Breaking the Chain of Causation

o It can be broken by act an act or event which, in the words of the Draft Criminal
Code was neither foreseen nor foreseeable or, in certain circumstances by the
voluntary actions of the victim or third party whether foreseeable or not
o An act or event which breaks the chain of causation is known as Novus actus
intervenes or a new act intervening
o We will examine Novus actus intervenus in the case of Jordan where the case the
court ruled rightly or wrongly that the intervening casual contribution of a third
party was so powerful and independent of the initial wrongful act of the defendant
that act was no longer fairly treated as the cause of death

New Acts intervening

o An intervening act of a third party will break the chain of causation if it is;
 Voluntary
 Independent of the initial, and
 Sufficient in itself to cause
o American case of People v Elder, D struck V collapsed on the ground then a
bystander B who was not part of any plan to hurt V stepped up and kicked V killing
him
o D was not guilty of homicide
o Although D was the factual cause of the death the independent and voluntary act of
B broke the chain of causation
o An English case of Rafferty is of breaking the chain of causation- intervening cause
supersedes defendant’s act
o The requirement that the act of third party be independent of the D’s act is
illustrated by the cases of Paggett and Cheshire the acts of the police officers in
Paggett and the medics in Cheshire, did not involve new acts intervening because
they were by way of reaction to D’s wrongful act, they were not independent of it
o Chain of causation in cases of intervening voluntary and independent acts is broken
only if the intervening act was sufficient in itself to kill V
o If V’s death occurred only because V was already weakened by the initial attack the
chain of causation will not be broken
 o Independent of the initial act which is still an operative cause can be seen in the
cases of Holland, Roberts and Blaue
o Most important cases of intervening acts of the victim breaking the chain of
causation involve drug supply
o The supplier of drugs to a person who has died following self-injection has been has
been charged with manslaughter
o We apply the usual rule of foreseeability the case of Roberts is a good example
o The supply is the legal cause of death however supplying drugs to someone does not
cause them to take the drugs
o In other words, the cause of death seems to be the voluntary act of the victim in self
injecting rather than that of the supplier in supplying it to them
o In Finlay the COA said that the supplier had caused the death because it was
foreseeable that the recipient would self-inject
o In Kennedy that the test is not whether the victim’s act was foreseeable but whether
it was voluntary
o A free and informed choice to self-inject the drug breaks the chain of causation it
would not be free and informed if the victim lacked mental capacity or did not know
of the strength of the drug

Intervening Events
o Intervening event will break the chain of causation if it is:
 Abnormal
 Independent of D’s act, and
 Sufficient in itself to cause the death or other harm
o V died in hospital due to an earthquake or contacted a fatal illness independent of
their condition
o In Bush v Commonwealth V died of scarlet fever contracted in hospital following D’s
attack
o D was held not to be the cause of death
o For example, if D leaves V unconscious by the side of the road and V later stumbles
on to the road and into the path of a passing car (Corbett)
o If D leaves V on the beach and the tide comes in and drowns V, or if D leaves V in a
cemetery and a wild attacks V
o The Harlot’s Case D will remain casually accountable for the resulting harm, death or
serious injury as the case may be