Term
| Constructive manslaughter |
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Definition
He has committed an unlawful act,
the unlawful act was dangerous
the unlawful act caused death |
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Term
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Definition
Unlawful act manslaughter
Manslaughter by gross negligence |
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Term
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Definition
To be an unlawful act for the purposes of constructive manslaughter, the act must amount to a crime (mens rea and actus reus must be present)
Andrews v DPP
Lamb |
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Term
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Definition
| D had been driving dangerously and knocked over and killed a pedestrian, He was convicted of manslaughter. The House of Lords held that careless driving was a lawful act done with a degree of carelessness sufficient to make it a statutory offence. It was not an unlawful act for the purposes of manslaughter. |
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Term
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Definition
| D and his friend were playing with a revolver. knowing that there was bullets in two of the chambers and also that neither of them was in the cahmber. he failed to realise that, on the gun being fired, the cylinder of chambers would automatically rotate. he aimed it and fired at point blank range at his friend who was killed. It was held that for there to be an unlawful assault there needed to be mens rea. he may still be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter by gross negligence. |
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Term
| how was dangerous defined in church |
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Definition
| dangerous in that, "all sober and reasonable people would inevitably recognize must subject the other person to, at least, the risk of some harm resulting therefrom, albeit not serious harm. " harm referred to physical harm, shock distress or emotion would not suffice. |
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Term
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Definition
| Two D's pushed a paving stone over the side of a bridge as a train approached underneath. It crashed through the window of a cab, killing the guard. Convicted of manslaughter the two appealed on the ground that they had not foreseen any harm as a a likely result of their actions. Dismissing the appeal the house of Lord followed the ruling in church and where the killing was the result of an unlawful act, the accused was guilty of manslaughter if the act was objectively dangerous. the test was not whether the accused recognised the act to be dangerous but whether sober and reasonable people would have recognized the risk of injury to someone. |
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Term
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Definition
| D and others attempted to rob a filling station, wearing masks and carrying a pick-axe handle an imitation firearm. The 60 year old attendant pressed the alarm and the attackers fled. The attendant had a sever heart condition and shortly afterwards died of a heart attack. The Court of Appeal quashed D's manslaughter conviction, holding that the test of whether the act was dangerous was an objective one depending on whether a reasonable person would have recognized the risk of some physical harm to the attendant and the reasonable person must be assumed to know only the facts and circumstances as observed by the defendant. the reasonable person would not have known that the attendant had a weak heart. |
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Term
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Definition
| It was held that if the the victim's frailty and old age would have been obvious to a reasonable observer, then at that point, the unlawful act would be one which a sober and reasonable person would recognize as carrying the risk of some physical harm. |
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Term
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Definition
| D set fire to a council house in which he lived. he tried to make it look like a fire bomb in order to persuade the council to rehouse him and his family on the basis that he was homeless. his wife and another were killed in the fire =. he appealed against his conviction for manslaughter on the basis that he had aimed his act at the council and had not aimed it at the victims. Dismissing the appeal , the court of appeal held that the unlawful act does not have to be aimed at anyone. It simply had to cause the death. However the chain of causation need not be broken. |
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Term
| Manslaughter by gross negligence |
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Definition
the requirements for manslaughter by gross negligence are : the existence of a duty owed by the accused to the deceased
breach of that duty caused death
gross negligence
for the negligence to amount to a gross negligence it must be something which goes beyond the civil law concept of negligence. |
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