The defendant appealed from his conviction for murder. He said that he had not been fit to plead at the time of the trial. A medical report had said that whilst his responsibility was impaired, it had not been substantially so. The report warned of the need to verify his ability to stand trial nearer the date, but no steps had been taken to do this.
Held: It was not the case that someone whose approach to a trial was severely affected by delusions was necessarily unfit to plead: ‘Each case, of course, depends on its own facts but delusions as to the court’s powers of sentence, or as to the objectivity of the court, or as to the evil influences which are thought to be present in the proceedings, do not necessarily require a finding that a person is unable to give instructions and to understand the proceedings.’ In this case the defence of diminished responsibility had not been withheld for any tactical reason, and the disease itself contributed to the decision. The appeal was allowed.

Pill LJ, Sweeney LJ, Sir Christopher Holland
[2008] EWCA Crim 3059
Bailii
Mental Health Act 1983
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Padola 1959
Lord Parker CJ said: ‘In our judgment the direction given by Alderson B. is not intended to cover and does not cover a case where the prisoner can plead to the indictment and has the physical and mental capacity to know that he has the right of . .
Cited – Regina v Robertson 1968
The court considered the definition of whether a defendant was fit to stand trial. The defendant had been found under a disability before arraignment, but now said that he should have been tried. There was medical evidence that his ‘delusional . .
Cited – Regina v Berry CACD 1978
Although a person was highly abnormal, it did not mean that he was incapable of doing those things set out in Pritchard as the requirements to be fit to be tried. Lord Lane CJ set aside a finding that the defendant was unfit to stand trial, saying: . .
Cited – John M, Regina v CACD 14-Nov-2003
The trial judge had directed the jury, determining fitness to plead, with an extended formulation of the test, including the appellant’s ability to give evidence, if he wished, in his own defence. This facility had been described to mean that ‘the . .
Cited – Latus, Regina v CACD 19-Dec-2006
The defendant having been convicted of murder now wished to bring evidence of diminished responsibility to support an appeal for a substituted finding of manslaughter.
Held: The evidence should have been brought at the trial, and could not now . .
Cited – Regina v Neaven CACD 15-May-2006
The defendant appealed his conviction for murder. Unknown to himself and his advisors he suffered schizophrenia at the time of the offence.
Held: The court upheld the paramount and fundamental importance of the principles in favour of one . .
Cited – Regina v Ahluwalia CACD 31-Jul-1992
The appellant sought substitution of a conviction for manslaughter of her husband for that of his murder. She had long suffered violent treatment by him. She had not raised the issue of diminished responsibility at trial.
Held: The court . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.278959

The defendant appealed against a conviction for inflicting grievous bodily harm, after causing a serious leg injury in a football match when tackling another player.
Held: There was surprisingly little authority on when it was appropriate to commence proceedings after an assault during a sporting event. The starting point must be to recognise that sports had their own disciplinary procedures and standards, and normally criminal proceedings should be undesirable. An injured party might also expect to be able to claim civil damages. Prosecutions should be reserved for those situations where the act could properly be categorised as criminal. The level of injury had to be considered along with the presence of consent, since no consent could generally be given to actual bodily harm. Contact sports were an exception, when the court should look to see whether what happened went beyond what risk a player could reasonably be expected to have accepted. The emphasis of the word ‘maliciously’ would normally only cause confusion in a jury in these situations.
Lord Woolf CJ: ‘When no bodily harm is caused, the consent of the victim to what happened is always a defence to a charge. When at least bodily harm is caused, consent is generally irrelevant because it has been long established by our courts that, exceptional situations apart, as a matter of law a person cannot consent to having bodily harm inflicted upon him.’

Lord Woolf LCJ, Cresswell J, Simon J
Times 10-Jan-2005, [2004] EWCA Crim 3246, [2005] 1 Cr App R 30, [2005] 1 WLR 910, [2005] Crim LR 381, [2005] 2 All ER 113
Bailii
Offences Against the Person Act 1861 20
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Dica CACD 5-May-2004
Reckless HIV transmission – Grievous Bodily Harm
The defendant appealed against his conviction for inflicting grievous bodily harm. He had HIV/Aids, and was found to have transmitted the disease by intercourse when the victims were not informed of his condition. It was not suggested that any rape . .
Cited – Regina v Brown (Anthony); Regina v Lucas; etc HL 11-Mar-1993
The appellants had been convicted of assault, after having engaged in consensual acts of sado-masochism in which they inflicted varying degreees of physical self harm. They had pleaded guilty after a ruling that the prosecution had not needed to . .
Cited – Regina v Cey 1989
Saskatchewan Court of Appeal – The defendant was accused of assault committed during the course of a game of ice hockey.
Held: (Majority) The game was very physical, but even so: ‘some forms of bodily contact carry with them such a high risk . .
Cited – Regina v Cunningham CCA 1957
Specific Intention as to Damage Caused
(Court of Criminal Appeal) The defendant wrenched a gas meter from the wall to steal it. Gas escaped. He was charged with unlawfully and maliciously causing a noxious thing, namely coal gas, to be taken by the victim.
Held: Byrne J said: ‘We . .
Cited – Regina v Mowatt CACD 20-Jun-1967
The defendant was attacked by his victim, and he hit his victim in the face. He was charged with wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm with an alternative of unlawful wounding also open to the jury. The judge gave no direction on the . .
Cited – Regina v Savage; Director of Public Prosecutions v Parmenter HL 7-Nov-1991
The first defendant had been convicted of wounding. She had intended to throw beer over her victim, but her glass slipped from her hand, and cut the victim. The second defendant threw his three year old child in the air and caught him, not realising . .

Cited by:
Cited – Konzani, Regina v CACD 17-Mar-2005
The defendant appealed conviction for inflicting grievous bodily harm on three women, by having unprotected sexual intercourse knowing that he was HIV positive, but without telling the women. Each contracted HIV. The allegation was that he had . .
Cited – Meachen, Regina v CACD 20-Oct-2006
The appellant appealed his conviction for anal rape. He said the incident had been consensual. He had administered a date rape drug. He said again that this had been consensual. The prosecution alleged that the injuries left were inconsistent with . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.222533

The prosecutor appealed against a ruling by the trial judge that, on an allegation that they had given agents of a commonwealth country substantial sums in return for lenient tax treament, it was necessary for the prosecution to prove that the agents of the tax authorities did not have the consent of the tax authorities, as their employer or principal, to receive the sum of money or other consideration.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The prosecution does not have to prove as an ingredient of the offences under s.1 of the 1906 Act that the principal did not know of the payment and did not give his informed consent. The prosecution need do no more than prove that the payment made for the prohibited purpose was made corruptly.

Sir John Thomas LCJ, Rafferty LJ, Henriques J
[2013] EWCA Crim 2287, [2013] WLR(D) 472
Bailii
Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 1
England and Wales

Crime

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.518814

Common Intent Required for Joint Enterprise

(Berkshire Assizes) An indictment charged Edmeads and others with unlawfully shooting at game keepers.
Held: The learned Baron ruled on the question of common intent, ‘that is rather a question for the Jury; but still, on this evidence, it is quite clear what the common purpose was. They all draw up in lines, and point their guns at the game-keepers, and they are all giving their countenance and assistance to the one of them who actually fires the gun. If it could be shown that either of them separated himself from the rest, and showed distinctly that he would have no hand in what they were doing, the objection would have much weight in it.’

Baron Vaughn
[1828] EngR 441, (1828) 3 Car and P 390, (1828) 172 ER 469
Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Becerra and Cooper CACD 1975
The defendants sought leave to appeal against their convictions for a brutal and horrific murder. Becerra suggeste dtat he had wanted to withdraw from the event before the murder took place.
Held: The appeal failed: ‘ in the circumstances then . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.323205

The defendant appealed against his conviction for possessing a loaded shotgun. He had wished to advance a defence to the effect that on the previous evening he had taken it ‘off a geezer who was going to do some damage with it’ in order to stop him.
Held: The duress of circumstances defence can apply and once raised must be left to the jury. Though it had been developed in road traffic law, it has general application. ‘The strength of the argument that a person ought to be permitted to breach the letter of the criminal law in order to prevent a greater evil befalling himself or others has long been recognised (see, for example, Stephen’s Digest of Criminal Law), but it has, in English law, not given rise to a recognised general defence of necessity, and in relation to the charge of murder, the defence has been specifically held not to exist (see Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273). Even in relation to other offences, there are powerful arguments against recognising the general defence.
However, that does not really deal with the situation where someone commendably infringes a regulation in order to prevent another person from committing what everyone would accept as being a greater evil with a gun. In that situation it cannot be satisfactory to leave it to the prosecuting authority not to prosecute, or to individual courts to grant an absolute discharge. The authority may, as in the present case, prosecute because it is not satisfied that the defendant is telling the truth, and even if he is vindicated and given an absolute discharge, he is left with a criminal conviction which, for some purposes, would be recognised as such.’

Kennedy LJ
Gazette 13-Jul-1995, Ind Summary 05-Jun-1995, Times 22-May-1995, [1995] 2 Cr App R 607, [1995] EWCA Crim 7
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Martin (Colin) CACD 29-Nov-1988
Defence of Necessity has a Place in Criminal Law
The defendant appealed against his conviction for driving whilst disqualified. He said he had felt obliged to drive his stepson to work because his stepson had overslept. His wife (who had suicidal tendencies) had been threatening suicide unless he . .
Cited – Regina v Conway 1989
The defendant said that he had driven recklessly because he was in fear for his life and that of his passenger.
Held: The court was bound by Willer to rule that a defence of duress was available. It was convenient to refer to this type of . .
Cited – Regina v Willer (Mark Edward) CACD 1986
The defendant appealed against his conviction for reckless driving (absolute discharge and ten penalty points). He drove his car slowly on the pavement in front of a shopping precinct. He said that this had seemed to him to be the only way in which . .

Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Shayler CACD 28-Sep-2001
Duress as Defence not closely Defined
The defendant had been a member of MI5. He had signed the Official Secrets Act, but then disclosed various matters, including material obtained by interceptions under the Interception of Communications Act. He claimed that his disclosures were made . .
Cited – In Re A (Minors) (Conjoined Twins: Medical Treatment); aka In re A (Children) (Conjoined Twins: Surgical Separation) CA 22-Sep-2000
Twins were conjoined (Siamese). Medically, both could not survive, and one was dependent upon the vital organs of the other. Doctors applied for permission to separate the twins which would be followed by the inevitable death of one of them. The . .
Cited – Regina v Rodger, Rose CACD 9-Jul-1997
The two defendants escaped from Parkhurst Prison. On capture they said that as murderers, they had received notices that though they had behaved without criticism in prison, their tarriffs had been increased. They said they felt unable to face . .
Cited – Quayle and others v Regina, Attorney General’s Reference (No. 2 of 2004) CACD 27-May-2005
Each defendant appealed against convictions associated variously with the cultivation or possession of cannabis resin. They sought to plead medical necessity. There had been medical recommendations to move cannabis to the list of drugs which might . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.87553

Course of Transmission includes Voicemails

The defendants appealed against convictions for conspiracy to intercept telephone voicemail messages whilst employed in various positions in newspapers. The issue boiled down to when the ‘course of transmission’ of a voicemail message ended, that is whether a voicemail message which was saved by the recipient on the voicemail facility of a public telecommunications system remained in the course of transmission. The appellants asserted that the words ‘in the course of transmission’ in section 1(1) of RIPA did not extend to cover voicemail messages once they had been accessed by the intended recipient.
Held: The appeals failed. The phrase covered not only the period before the message was received by equipment and stored, but also the time when it awaited actual receipt by the owner. This was put beyond doubt by the words of section 2(7): ‘there is nothing in the words ‘for storing it in a manner that enables the intended recipient . . otherwise to have access to it’ which suggests that this opportunity is limited by time or that it can only occur on a single occasion. On the contrary, the words suggest to us a continuing state of affairs. There is no basis for reading into the statutory language a limitation restricting it by reference to the first occasion when the intended recipient has access to it.’

Lord Judge LCJ, Lloyd Jones LJ, Openshaw J
[2013] EWCA Crim 1026, [2013] WLR(D) 262, (2013) 177 JP 513, [2014] 1 WLR 1119, [2013] 4 All ER 999, [2013] 2 Cr App R 32, [2013] 3 CMLR 51
Bailii, WLRD
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 1 2(7), Interception of Communications Act 1985, Directive 97/66/EC 5, Directive 2002/58/EC of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector, Criminal Law Act 1977 1
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Thompson and Another, Regina v CACD 22-Nov-2006
The prosecution sought leave to appeal the quashing of an indictment.
Held: Section 53 of the 2003 Act could not be used for this purpose. The defendants had successfully challenged the adequacy of the Crown’s case before trial. The defendants . .
Cited – Regina v Effik; Regina v Mitchell HL 22-Jul-1994
The material obtained by intercepting signals passing between a base unit and the handset of a cordless telephone was admissible because no communication was being made by means of a public system when the calls were intercepted by the police. A . .
Cited – Regina v E CACD 26-Apr-2004
The court was asked as to the permissibility of admitting covert recordings of the accused’s car by investigating officers, which recorded the accused’s words as they spoke into their telephones. The defendants said that this amount to interception . .
Cited – Regina v McDonald 23-Apr-2002
Woolwich Crown Court. The court was asked to rule on the admissibility of evidence of with telephone calls recorded by external microphones.
Held: The offence under section 1 of the 2002 Act is committed by intercepting a transmission as it is . .
Cited – NTL Group Ltd, Regina (on The Application of) v S Constabulary Admn 22-Jul-2002
The claimant sought judicial review of the granting of a special protection order with regard to the retention of emails sent by their customers, and for permission to destroy material relating to the application. The result, said the applicant, . .
Cited – Regina v Hardy (Brian); Regina v Hardy (Danny) CACD 31-Oct-2002
Police working undercover were asked to use mobile telephones. They recorded their conversations. At trial the defendants asked for the details of the authorisation for the interception of the communications, but were given only part information . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.511339

The first defendant had been convicted of wounding. She had intended to throw beer over her victim, but her glass slipped from her hand, and cut the victim. The second defendant threw his three year old child in the air and caught him, not realising any risk of injury, but was convicted of inflicting grievous bodily harm. The questions arose of what intent to commit injury was required, and whether alternative convictions of actual bodily harm were available.
Held: Alternate convictions for actual bodily harm were available on proof of assault and of causing the injury. For a conviction under s20, an intention to cause injury, or foresight of injury, even if not serious, needs to be proved. The Act of 1861 contains ‘a rag-bag of offences brought together from a variety of sources with no attempt, as the draftsman frankly acknowledged, to introduce consistency as to substance or as to form.’
Although the first defendant may not have intended to injure her victim, she had shown an intention to apply unlawful force and that was sufficient mens rea to support a conviction for actual bodily harm. The second defendant had not foreseen any rsik of harm, and a conviction for actual bodily harm was substituted.

Lord Ackner
[1992] 1 AC 699, [1991] 3 WLR 914, [1991] 4 All ER 698 HL(E), [1992] UKHL 1, (1991) 92 Cr App R 68, [1991] UKHL 15, [1991] 94 Cr App R 193
Bailii, Bailii
Offences Against the Person Act 1861 20
England and Wales
Citing:
Followed – Regina v Wilson (Clarence); Regina v Jenkins HL 1983
The court considered the application of the section on alternative verdicts available to juries on a trial for attempted murder. The allegations in a charge under section 20 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 or under section 9(1)(b) of the . .
Approved – Regina v Roberts 1971
The complainant travelled in the appellant’s car. As he was driving, he had assaulted her in the car but not so as to cause her actual bodily harm. However, as his assault continued, she opened the car door and jumped out. This caused her to sustain . .
Overruled – Regina v Spratt CACD 2-Jan-1990
The defendant fired his air gun from a window hitting a six year old girl. He admitted a section 47 assault on the basis that he had been unaware of her presence, and had given no thought to any risk.
Held: Failure to give any thought to a . .
Approved – Regina v Cunningham CCA 1957
Specific Intention as to Damage Caused
(Court of Criminal Appeal) The defendant wrenched a gas meter from the wall to steal it. Gas escaped. He was charged with unlawfully and maliciously causing a noxious thing, namely coal gas, to be taken by the victim.
Held: Byrne J said: ‘We . .

Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Brown (Anthony); Regina v Lucas; etc HL 11-Mar-1993
The appellants had been convicted of assault, after having engaged in consensual acts of sado-masochism in which they inflicted varying degreees of physical self harm. They had pleaded guilty after a ruling that the prosecution had not needed to . .
Applied – Regina v Mandair HL 20-May-1994
The House of Lords may itself determine the grounds of an appeal, and deal with matters undetermined by Court of Appeal. A verdict of ‘causing GBH’ (not inflicting) was not an offence unknown to law. A verdict of ‘causing GBH contrary to s20’ was . .
Cited – B (A Minor) v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 23-Feb-2000
Prosecution to prove absence of genuine belief
To convict a defendant under the 1960 Act, the prosecution had the burden of proving the absence of a genuine belief in the defendant’s mind that the victim was 14 or over. The Act itself said nothing about any mental element, so the assumption must . .
Approved – Regina v Burstow, Regina v Ireland HL 24-Jul-1997
The defendant was accused of assault occasioning actual bodily harm when he had made silent phone calls which were taken as threatening.
Held: An assault might consist of the making of a silent telephone call in circumstances where it causes . .
Cited – Bici and Bici v Ministry of Defence QBD 7-Apr-2004
Claimants sought damages for personal injuries incurred when, in Pristina, Kosovo and during a riot, British soldiers on a UN peacekeeping expedition fired on a car.
Held: The incidents occurred in the course of peace-keeping duties. It was . .
Cited – Konzani, Regina v CACD 17-Mar-2005
The defendant appealed conviction for inflicting grievous bodily harm on three women, by having unprotected sexual intercourse knowing that he was HIV positive, but without telling the women. Each contracted HIV. The allegation was that he had . .
Cited – Regina v Ireland CACD 14-May-1996
Silent telephone calls which resulted in psychiatric damage to the victim could constitute an ‘assault occasioning actual bodily harm’ for the purposes of section 47 of the 1861 Act. Swinton Thomas LJ said: ‘The early cases pre-date the invention of . .
Cited – Regina v Boyea CACD 28-Jan-1992
The defendant was accused of having, with or without the consent of his victim, caused her physical damage by inserting his hand in her vagina and twisting it.
Held: ‘the extent of the violence inflicted . . went far beyond the risk of minor . .
Cited – Meachen, Regina v CACD 20-Oct-2006
The appellant appealed his conviction for anal rape. He said the incident had been consensual. He had administered a date rape drug. He said again that this had been consensual. The prosecution alleged that the injuries left were inconsistent with . .
Cited – Jones v First Tier Tribunal and Another SC 17-Apr-2013
The claimant had been injured when a lorry driver swerved to avoid hitting a man who stood in his path. He said that the deceased’s act of suicide amounted to an offence of violence under the 1861 Act so as to bring his own claim within the 2001 . .
Cited – Regina v Barnes CACD 21-Dec-2004
The defendant appealed against a conviction for inflicting grievous bodily harm, after causing a serious leg injury in a football match when tackling another player.
Held: There was surprisingly little authority on when it was appropriate to . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.166137

Infanticide to be considered

The defendant, under great stress and at the least mood problems gave birth in the bathroom at home. She then killed the child by stabbing it. She now appealed against her conviction for murder saying that the judge should have left to the jury a possible conviction under the 1938 Act as well a an alternative of manslaughter.
Held: Her appeal succeeded, and a retrial ordered The two alternative offences were defined very differently and would require different approaches and assessments. The 1938 Act concentrated on the mother’s condition as a result of just having given birth. The judge’s approach would put such a person at a disadvantage when considering a charge of manslaughter. The causative element was properly one for the jury, there being evidence and the circumstances which might support that alternative.

Treacy LJ, Yip J, Judge Marson QC
[2018] EWCA Crim 1696, [2018] WLR(D) 462
Bailii, WLRD
Infanticide Act 1938 1(1)
England and Wales

Crime

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.620167

The claimant was subject to a non-derogating control order under the 2005 Act. A relaxation was sought to allow him to visit his solicitors. But was offered subject to conditions which included a requirement that he be subject to a personal search. The claimant said that the Act did not contain a power to require such a search. The defendant said that what was being asked for was merely a condition for agreement to the variation.
Held: Judicial review was refused because of the availablity of the appeal. The appeal failed. A search was a standard requirement for being provided with a police escort, and it was proper to require any visit to be escorted. The appeal failed.

Mitting J
[2009] EWHC 2938 (Admin)
Bailii
Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 3910)
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Secretary of State for the Home Department v GG CA 23-Jul-2009
The defendant challenged the inclusion in a control order of an order to submit to personal searches. The Secretary of State appealed against a refusal of the order to ermit the searches.
Held: The appeal failed. Such orders were made solely . .
Cited – L, Regina (On the Application of) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis SC 29-Oct-2009
Rebalancing of Enhanced Disclosure Requirements
The Court was asked as to the practice of supplying enhanced criminal record certificates under the 1997 Act. It was said that the release of reports of suspicions was a disproportionate interference in the claimants article 8 rights to a private . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.380252

The appellant had been convicted of an offence contrary to section 1 of the 1964 Act, of having been found in possession of drugs.
Held: (Reid dissenting) The prosecution had only to prove that the accused knew of the existence of the thing and that it was in general not a defence for him to say that he believed the thing to be something else such as scent and not drugs.
Lord Reid said: ‘The rule is firmly established that we may not look at Hansard . . ‘
Lord Wilberforce said: ‘Ideally, a possessor of a thing has complete physical control over it, he has knowledge of its existence, its situation and its qualities: he has received it from a person who intends to confer possession of it and he has himself the intention to possess it exclusively of others. But these elements are seldom all present in situation with which the court have to deal, and where one or more of them is lacking, or incompletely present, it has to be decided whether the given approximation is such that possession may be held sufficiently established to satisfy the relevant rule of law. As it is put by Pollock and Wright, possession: is defined by modes of events in which it commences or ceases and by legal incidents attached to it’.
Lord Guest defined the possession by citing the Dictionary of English Law and stated that: ‘Possession, the visible possibility of exercising physical control over a thing, coupled with the intention of doing so, either against all the world, or against all the world exception of doing so, either against all the world, or against all the world except certain persons. There are therefore, three requisites of possession. First, there must be actual or potential physical control, secondly physical control is not possession, unless accompanied by intention, hence, if a thing is put into a hand of a sleeping person, he had not possession of it. Thirdly, the possibility and intention must be visible or evidenced by external signs, for if the thing shows no signs of being under the control of anyone, it is not possessed’.
Lord Pearce said: ‘I think that the term ‘possession’ is satisfied by a knowledge only of the existence of the thing itself and not its qualities and that ignorance or mistake as to its qualities is not an excuse. This would comply with the general understanding of the word ‘possess.” and ‘By physical possession or control I include things in his pocket, in his car, in his room and so forth. That seems to me to accord with the general popular wide meaning of the word ‘possession’ and to be in accordance with the intention of the [Firearms] Act.’

Lord Pearce, Lord Reid, Lord Wilberforce, Lord Guest
[1969] 2 AC 256, [1968] 2 All ER 356, (1968) 52 Cr App R 373, [1968] 2 WLR 1303
Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act 1964 1
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Towers and Co Ltd v Gray 1961
The term ‘possession’ has been the source of constant difficulty of interpretation, and must be construed in the particular context. . .
Cited – Brend v Wood 1946
The court discussed the need to assume that conviction for an offence required proof of mens rea.
Lord Goddard CJ said: ‘It should first be observed that at common law there must always be mens rea to constitute a crime; if a person can show . .

Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Lambert HL 5-Jul-2001
Restraint on Interference with Burden of Proof
The defendant had been convicted for possessing drugs found on him in a bag when he was arrested. He denied knowing of them. He was convicted having failed to prove, on a balance of probabilities, that he had not known of the drugs. The case was . .
Cited – B (A Minor) v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 23-Feb-2000
Prosecution to prove absence of genuine belief
To convict a defendant under the 1960 Act, the prosecution had the burden of proving the absence of a genuine belief in the defendant’s mind that the victim was 14 or over. The Act itself said nothing about any mental element, so the assumption must . .
Cited – Sheldrake v Director of Public Prosecutions; Attorney General’s Reference No 4 of 2002 HL 14-Oct-2004
Appeals were brought complaining as to the apparent reversal of the burden of proof in road traffic cases and in cases under the Terrorism Acts. Was a legal or an evidential burden placed on a defendant?
Held: Lord Bingham of Cornhill said: . .
Cited – Regina v K HL 25-Jul-2001
In a prosecution for an offence of indecent assault on a girl under 16 under the section, it was necessary for the prosecution to prove the absence of a positive belief in the defendant’s mind that the victim was 16 or over. The legislation history . .
Cited – Regina v Bett CACD 12-Oct-1998
A conviction under section 8(b) for permitting premises to be used for the supply of controlled drugs was correct without evidence of knowledge of the particular drug supplied even though particular drugs were named in the indictments. The section . .
Cited – Porter, Regina v CACD 16-Mar-2006
The defendant appealed his conviction of possession of indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children. The images had been deleted, and were irrecoverable, but they had originally been viewed through a program which created a smaller . .
Cited – Regina v Morgan HL 30-Apr-1975
The defendants appealed against their convictions for rape, denying mens rea and asserting a belief (even if mistaken) that the victim had consented.
Held: For a defence of mistake to succeed, the mistake must have been honestly made and need . .
Cited – Jenkins v Director of Public Prosecutions and Another Admn 22-May-2020
Short term possession of stun gun
The appellant challenged the decision of the justices finding him guilty on summary conviction of an offence of possession of a weapon designed or adapted for the discharge of electrical current for incapacitation contrary to s. 5(1)(b) and Schedule . .
Cited – Sweet v Parsley HL 23-Jan-1969
Mens Rea essential element of statutory Offence
The appellant had been convicted under the Act 1965 of having been concerned in the management of premises used for smoking cannabis. This was a farmhouse which she visited infrequently. The prosecutor had conceded that she was unaware that the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.194989

A defendant may be convicted of murder if it is established either (1) that he had an intent to kill or (2) that he had an intent to cause really serious bodily injury.
Intention is a state of mind which can never be proved as a fact. It can only be inferred from other facts which are proved.
Lord Edmund-Davies said: ‘the outcome of intentionally inflicting serious harm can be so unpredictable that anyone prepared to act so wickedly has little ground for complaint if, where death results, he is convicted and punished as severely as one who intended to kill.’

Lord Edmund-Davies
[1982] AC 566, [1981] UKHL 5, [1981] 2 All ER 863, (1981) 145 JP 411, [1981] 3 WLR 223, (1981) 73 Cr App R 253
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Woollin HL 2-Apr-1998
The defendant appealed against his conviction for the murder of his child. He had thrown the child to the floor, hitting the head. He said that he had not intended to kill the child.
Held: On a murder charge, where the short direction on . .
Cited – Attorney-General’s Reference (No 3 of 1994) HL 24-Jul-1997
The defendant stabbed a pregnant woman. The child was born prematurely and died. The attack had been directed at the mother, and the proper offence was manslaughter.
Held: The only questions which need to be addressed are (1) whether the act . .
Cited – Rahman and Others, Regina v HL 2-Jul-2008
The defendants appealed against their convictions for murder. None had themselves inflicted any violence, but were convicted as part of a joint enterprise. They said they had not known that the principal carried a knife. They said that the evidence . .
Cited – BM, Regina v CACD 22-Mar-2018
The defendant appealed from a preliminary ruling that his body modification services were not in law capable of being consented to and therefore amounted to an assault.
Held: The appeal failed: ‘we can see no good reason why body modification . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.186622

The appellant sought substitution of a conviction for manslaughter of her husband for that of his murder. She had long suffered violent treatment by him. She had not raised the issue of diminished responsibility at trial.
Held: The court emphasised the need for any available relevant evidence to be advanced at trial. Defendants were not to be permitted to run a defence at trial in the belief that after conviction, the court would allow a different defence to be raised. However evidence which would have supported diminished responsibility and was available at trial was ‘overlooked’ and not ‘further pursued’ at trial. The appellant herself ‘was not consulted’ by her lawyers and she did not, in any real sense, decide that the defence should not be advanced.
The phrase a ‘sudden and temporary loss of self-control’ ‘encapsulates an essential ingredient of the defence of provocation in a clear and readily understandable phrase. It serves to underline that the defence is concerned with the actions of an individual who is not, at the moment when he or she acts violently, master of his or her own mind.’ and ‘English cases concerned with the ‘reasonable man’ element of provocation, and examples given by judges, have tended to focus on physical characteristics. Thus age, sex, colour, race and any physical abnormality have been considered.’
As to the relevance of an interval between the provocative conduct and the reaction of the defendant to it: ‘Time for reflection may show that after the provocative conduct made its impact on the mind of the defendant, he or she kept or regained self-control. The passage of time following the provocation may also show that the subsequent attack was planned or based on motives, such as revenge or punishment, inconsistent with the loss of self-control and therefore with the defence of provocation . . There are important considerations of public policy which would be involved should provocation be redefined so as possibly to blur the distinction between sudden loss of self-control and deliberate retribution.’
Addressing the appellant’s submission that expert evidence showed that women who have been subjected frequently over a period to violent treatment may react to the final act or words by ‘slow burn’ reaction rather than by an immediate loss of self-control: ‘We accept that the subjective element in the defence of provocation would not as a matter of law be negatived simply because of the delayed reaction in such cases, provided that there was at the time of the killing a ‘sudden and temporary loss of self-control’ caused by the alleged provocation. However, the longer the delay and the stronger the evidence of deliberation on the part of the defendant, the more likely it will be that the prosecution will negative provocation.’
‘Ordinarily, of course, any available defences should be advanced at trial. Accordingly, if medical evidence is available to support a plea of diminished responsibility, it should be adduced at the trial. It cannot be too strongly emphasised that this court would require much persuasion to allow such a defence [diminished responsibility] to be raised for the first time here if the option had been exercised at trial not to pursue it. Otherwise, as must be clear, defendants might be encouraged to run one defence at trial in the belief that if it fails, this court would allow a different defence to be raised and give the defendant, in effect, two opportunities to run different defences. Nothing could be further from the truth.’

Lord Taylor of Gosforth, CJ
[1992] 4 All ER 889, [1993] 96 Cr App R 133, [1992] EWCA Crim 1, [1993] Crim LR 63
Bailii
Homicide Act 1957 2
England and Wales
Citing:
Approved – Regina v Duffy CCA 1949
The court approved Devlin J’s direction to the jury on the defence of provocation to a charge of murder which had described provocation: ‘Provocation is some act or series of acts done or words spoken by the dead man to the accused which would cause . .

Cited by:
Cited – Her Majestys Attorney General for Jersey v Holley PC 15-Jun-2005
(Jersey) The defendant appealed his conviction for murder, claiming a misdirection on the law of provocation. A chronic alcoholic, he had admitted killing his girlfriend with an axe. Nine law lords convened to seek to reconcile conflicting decisions . .
Cited – Regina v Andrews CACD 15-Oct-2003
The defendant sought leave to appeal her conviction for murder saying that a finding of manslaughter was appropriate for her diminished responsibility.
Held: There was insufficient evidence to establish that the judge’s directions on the . .
Cited – Luc Thiet Thuan v The Queen PC 2-Apr-1996
(Hong Kong) On a trial for murder the defendant relied on the defences of diminished responsibility and provocation. Medical evidence showed the defendant suffered from brain damage and was prone to respond to minor provocation by losing his . .
Cited – Regina v Parker CACD 25-Feb-1997
The defendant appealed his conviction for murder, saying that his defence of provocation should have been left for the jury.
Held: Not following Luc, it was open to admit relevant evidence on the defendant’s capacity for self-control. Having . .
Cited – Moyle v Regina CACD 18-Dec-2008
The defendant appealed from his conviction for murder. He said that he had not been fit to plead at the time of the trial. A medical report had said that whilst his responsibility was impaired, it had not been substantially so. The report warned of . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.218842

Application for an extension of time of 16 days in which to apply for leave to appeal against conviction of dangerous driving.

[2021] EWCA Crim 1412
Bailii
England and Wales

Crime

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.668579

Two applications for leave to appeal against conviction and sentences – whether victims of trafficking

[2021] EWCA Crim 1278
Bailii
England and Wales

Crime

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.668377

The respondent went to the house of a partner with whom he had a dispute, and fired three shots into the house. Nobody was injured. He had successfully appealed a conviction for criminal damage being reckless as to whether somebody else’s life should be endangered, having argued that any threat to life did not arise from the damages caused by the shot.
Held: The prosecutor’s appeal failed. The prosecution were required to prove that the danger to life resulted from the destruction of or damage to property; it is not sufficient for the prosecution to prove that it resulted from the act of the defendant which caused the destruction or damage.

Lord Bridge of Harwich, Lord Griffiths, Lord Ackner, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, Lord Goff of Chieveley
[1986] UKHL 6, [1987] 2 All ER 833, [1988] AC 111, [1987] 3 WLR 205
Bailii
Criminal Damage Act 1971 1(2)(b)
England and Wales

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.248699

The applicants challenged their convictions and sentences for conspiracy to corrupt. They owned a company manufacturing fuel additives. Technology developments meant that they came under increasing pressure on sales. They were said to have entered into corrupt agreemets to boost sales, sweetener payments being said to have been made by their agents. They complained that contrary to principle the allegation against them had been allowed to develop and change through the trial.
Held: Those charged with a conspiracy may have sought to achieve the common aim by different means, and it was not necessary to prove that all of the conspirators were aware of the full range of ways in which the common purpose might be executed.
Count 2 was an unnecessary distraction in this case and the jury should have been invited to consider count 1 alone, which encompassed the broader and the narrower bases discussed above. However, no injustice has resulted following the acquittal of both applicants on count 1 and their conviction on count 2, and in consequence the application for leave to appeal against conviction failed as regards both applicants.
However the appeals against sentences were successful.

Fulford LJ, MacDuff J, Elisabeth Laing DBE J
[2014] EWCA Crim 1863
Bailii
Criminal Law Act 1977 1(1)
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Johal and Ram 1972
Ashworth J said: ‘The argument for the appellants appeared to involve the proposition that an indictment, in order to be defective, must be one which in law did not charge any offence at all and therefore is bad on the face of it. We do not take . .
Cited – Regina v Radley CACD 1973
On a single count indictment alleging conspiracy to defraud, after the Prosecution opening it amended by addition counts to cater for the possibility that more than one conspiracy had existed; This made the case easier for the Jury and no injustice . .
Cited – Rex v Meyrick and Ribuffi CCA 1929
The first count of the indictment alleged that the former police sergeant Goddard and the: ‘two appellants on divers days between the 1st October 1924 and the 24th November 1928 in the County of London, conspired together, and with one Anna Gadda, . .
Cited – Regina v Griffiths and Others CCA 1965
A supplier of lime and his employee were accused of conspiring with seven farmers to defraud the Ministry by submitting excessive subsidy claims. They were also charged with fraudulently obtaining money from the Ministry. There was no evidence that . .
Cited – Regina v Coughlan and Young CACD 1976
Coughlan and Young were convicted at Birmingham Crown Court of conspiracy to cause explosions in the United Kingdom, the prosecution having limited the allegation to explosions in Birmingham and its neighbourhood. Charges had been brought in respect . .
Cited – Mehta v Regina CACD 31-Dec-2012
The defendant appealed against his conviction for conspiracy to defraud. His co-defendant and alleged co-conspirator had been acquitted.
Held: The appeal against conviction failed. The defence knew that they were going to have to deal with the . .
At Outer House – Cramaso Llp v Viscount Reidhaven’s Trustees SCS 11-May-2010
Outer House – The pursuer said that it had been misled into taking a lease of a grouse moor by the responders making a repesentation to Mr Erskine who had conducted negotiations, and then created the pursuer as a vehicle for the lease. He sought the . .
Cited – Ahmed Ali and Others, Regina v CACD 19-May-2011
Defendants sought leave to appeal against convictions for conspiracy to murder on allegations of intended terrorism. In essence they complained of having been tried twice on substantially the same facts. The court accepted that a defendant who was . .
Cited – Shillam v Regina CACD 22-Feb-2013
The appellant was given leave to appeal on the single ground that the direction given by the judge in response to a note from the jury allowed the possibility that the appellant and his co-accused were convicted of the offence charged without the . .

Cited by:
Cited – Bhatti and Others v Regina CACD 30-Jul-2015
The defendants appealed against their convictions for conspiracy to facilitate breaches of immigration law, saying that they had been based on evidence obtained by the police from credit reference agencies in breach of their rights under the 1984 . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.536780

Short term possession of stun gun

The appellant challenged the decision of the justices finding him guilty on summary conviction of an offence of possession of a weapon designed or adapted for the discharge of electrical current for incapacitation contrary to s. 5(1)(b) and Schedule 6 of the Firearms Act 1968. The weapon, namely a stun gun (‘the stun gun’), was found in the glove compartment of the car being driven by Mr Jenkins. The question was: ‘Did we err in finding that the appellant was in possession of the stun gun when his vehicle was stopped by the police?’ He have a lift to a young lady and on discovering that she was in possession of the stun gun, insisted that she put it to one side. She placed it in the glove compartment.
Held: The Magistrates had made no error: ‘Even on the basis that the Magistrates accepted all of Mr Jenkins’ oral evidence, the stun gun was, to Mr Jenkins’ knowledge, in his car which he chose then to drive. Despite initially objecting to its presence, he then allowed the stun gun to be placed and remain in his car which he then drove away (for some 10 minutes), controlling its location. He could have insisted Ms Price leave the car with the stun gun; he could have left the car in the event that she refused. Whilst Mr Jenkins may have expressed concern at the outset, any objection did not prevent him from voluntarily continuing on his way with the stun gun in place. The fact that the period of possession was short-lived did not afford Mr Jenkins any defence.’

Lady Justice Carr, Mr Justice Saini
[2020] EWHC 1307 (Admin)
Bailii
Firearms Act 1968 5(1)(b)
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Warner v Metropolitan Police Commissioner HL 1968
The appellant had been convicted of an offence contrary to section 1 of the 1964 Act, of having been found in possession of drugs.
Held: (Reid dissenting) The prosecution had only to prove that the accused knew of the existence of the thing . .
Cited – Sullivan v Earl of Caithness QBD 1976
The defendant who lived in Oxfordshire stored his guns at his mother’s property in Surrey because it was more secure. The magistrates held that he was not in possession of the guns in Oxfordshire. The prosecutor appealed.
Held: The appeal . .
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Chand Admn 17-Jan-2007
Prosecutor’s appeal against dismissal of charge of theft – refusal to admit bad character evidence – basis for interfering with finding of fact.
Held: The court will not usually interfere with findings of fact by magistrates unless there was . .
Cited – Regina v Taylor CACD 2011
. .
Cited – Hall v Cotton Admn 1987
The first defendant held a shotgun certificate and owned two shotguns. He left them at the home of the second defendant, who had no certificate, while they and their families went on holiday together. On their return, the second defendant agreed to . .
Cited – Deyemi and Another, Regina v CACD 13-Aug-2007
After a judge’s ruling as to strict liability for the possession of a prohibited weapon, the defendants pleaded guilty. They now appealed against conviction. The judge had sentenced them on the basis that liability for possession was strict.
Crime

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.651052

Hughes LJ analysed the authorities on the requirements to establish joint venture criminal liability saying: ‘the liability of D2 . . rests, as all these citations show, on his having continued in the common venture of crime A when he realises (even if he does not desire) that crime B may be committed in the course of it. Where crime B is murder, that means that he can properly be held guilty if he foresees that D1 will cause death by acting with murderous intent (viz either intent to kill or intent to do GBH). He has associated himself with a foreseen murder’ and ‘It is necessary to remember that guilt based upon common enterprise is a form of secondary liability. The principle is that D2 is implicated in the guilt of D1 not only for the agreed crime A but for the further crime B which he foresaw D1 might commit in the course of A. This form of liability therefore arises only where D1 has committed the further crime B.’ and ‘That the joint participant can only be guilty of murder on the basis that he participates in the common enterprise and foresees that in the course of that common enterprise another joint participant may, not will, commit murder, that is to say act with the intention to kill or cause grievous bodily harm.’

Hughes LJ, Wyn Williamsom King JJ
[2010] EWCA Crim 1622, [2011] 2 WLR 647, [2010] 2 Cr App R 32, [2011] QB 841, [2011] Crim LR 61
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Gnango, Regina v SC 14-Dec-2011
The prosecutor appealed against a successful appeal by the defendant against his conviction for murder. He and an opponent had engaged in a street battle using guns. His opponent had shot an innocent passer by. The court was now asked as to whether . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.420803

The defendants appealed their convictions under the 1824 Act for being found in an enclosed space for an unlawful purpose. They had been filmed on CCTV on sites owned by Middlesex University.
Held: The appeals succeeded. The magistrates had incorrectly distinguished the authorities by holding that the phrase ‘enclosed space’ should not be restricted in its application to areas adjacent to houses.

Lord Justice Goldring and Mr Justice Sweeney
Times 13-Apr-2009
Vagrancy Act 1824
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Knott v Blackburn 1944
. .
Cited – Talbot v Oxford City Justices; Director of Public Prosecutions QBD 3-Feb-2000
The defendant having been found inside an office was convicted under the Act of being in an enclosed area within the Act. It was held that the Act clearly referred to enclosed but open areas. The list of buildings was exhaustive and did not include . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.334621

The two teenage defendants pushed a stone slab from a bridge onto an oncoming train. The slab went through the window and killed the guard. They appealed convictions for manslaughter.
Held: The appeals were dismissed. An unlawful act can found a conviction for manslaughter even though the defendant did not foresee the harm. There is neither a need to show awareness that the act was unlawful, nor an intention to cause injury.
Lord Salmon said: ‘The direction which [the trial judge] gave is completely in accordance with established law, which, possibly with one exception to which I shall presently refer, has never been challenged.
I agree entirely with Lawton LJ [in Larkin] that that is an admirably clear statement of the law which has been applied many times. It makes it plain (a) that an accused is guilty of manslaughter if it is proved that he intentionally did an act which was unlawful and dangerous and that that act inadvertently caused death and (b) that it is unnecessary to prove that the accused knew that the act was unlawful or dangerous. This is one of the reasons why cases of manslaughter vary so infinitely in their gravity. They may amount to little more than pure inadvertence and sometimes to little less than murder.
I am sure that in Reg. v Church [1966] 1 QB 59 Edmund Davies J, in giving the judgment of the court, did not intend to differ from or qualify anything which had been said in Rex v Larkin, 29 Cr App R 18. Indeed he was restating the principle laid down in that case by illustrating the sense in which the word ‘dangerous’ should be understood. Edmund Davies J said, at p. 70: ‘For such a verdict’ (guilty of manslaughter) ‘inexorably to follow, 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 resulting therefrom, albeit not serious harm.’ The test is still the objective test. In judging whether the act was dangerous the test is not did the accused recognise that it was dangerous but would all sober and reasonable people recognise its danger.’

Diplock, Simon of Glaisdale, Kilbrandon, Salmon, Edmund-Davies LL
[1976] CLY 496, [1977] AC 500, [1976] UKHL 3
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Larkin CCA 1943
There may be involuntary manslaughter, if the accused intentionally did an act which was unlawful and dangerous and that act inadvertently caused death. Humphreys J said: ‘Where the act which a person is engaged in performing is unlawful, then if at . .

Cited by:
Applied – Regina v Goodfellow CACD 1986
The defendant had failed to get re-housed. He planned to burn down his present lodgings, rescuing the other inhabitants. Three died in his attempt. He appealed a conviction for manslaughter.
Held: The case was either an unlawful act or . .
Cited – Regina v Coutts HL 19-Jul-2006
The defendant was convicted of murder. Evidence during the trial suggested a possibility of manslaughter, but neither the defence nor prosecution proposed the alternate verdict. The defendant now appealed saying that the judge had an independent . .
Cited – O’Connor, Regina (On the Application of) v HM Coroner for District of Avon and Another Admn 7-May-2009
Two children died when their father jumped with them from a hotel balcony. The father had been acquitted in Crete of manslaughter after evidence of his psychiatric condition. The applicant now challenged the English coroner’s verdict of unlawful . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.191177

The prisoner appealed against his conviction for murder on reference from the CCRC. There were new doubts about the reliabiity of the expert forensic expert.
Held: The appeal was dismissed. Dr H’s evidence did not impinge on the essential issues in the trial, and the diminution in his standing as an expert witness did not undermine the safety of this conviction. The defendant had used deliberate serious force, attacking the victim with a knife. There had been disputes between the forensic experts, and difficulties also with the defence expert evidence. Difficulties dealt with on the first appeal were not cumulative with these.

Judge LCJ, Henriques J, Davis J
(2011) 119 BMLR 151, [2011] EWCA Crim 650
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v O’ Leary CACD 29-Nov-2006
The fact that the reputation of a forensic expert on whose evidence a conviction was based had been undermined would not always mean that the conviction would be overturned. Though the Crown conceded in this case that the conviction was now unsafe, . .
Cited – Boreman and Others, Regina v CACD 19-Jun-2006
Appeals were allowed where the reputation of the forensic expert upon whose evidence the convictions were based had been seriously damaged. . .
Cited – Ahmed v Regina CACD 14-Dec-2010
The defendant appealed against his conviction saying that the reputation of the forensic expert on whose evidence it had been based had been severely damaged.
Held: Although the information relating to Dr Heath was ‘deeply concerning . . to . .
Cited – Stafford v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 1974
The House rejected the submission of counsel that the Court of Appeal had asked the wrong question by taking as the test the effect of the fresh evidence on their mind and not the effect that the evidence would have had on the mind of the jury. It . .
Cited – Burridge v Regina CACD 2-Dec-2010
The defendant appealed against his conviction for the murder of his infant son. There had been considerable expert medical evidence called, but only by the prosecution.
Held: The court considered the basis upon which new evidence could be . .
Cited – Dunn and Others, Regina v CACD 23-Jun-2009
Appeals from conviction of murder: ‘on the basis that [the evidence of one witness] may be different in material respects from what was said subsequently at the trial of Conrad Jones’. . .
Cited – Regina v Pendleton HL 13-Dec-2001
The defendant had appealed his conviction for murder to the Court of Appeal. The 1968 Act required the court to consider whether the conviction was unsafe. New evidence was before the Court of Appeal, but they had rejected the appeal.
Held: . .
Cited – Regina v Harris, Rockalan, Cherry, Faulder CACD 21-Jul-2005
The court gave guidance in respect of expert evidence given in criminal trials. The court made the following two points with regard to evidence of a subdural hematoma caused non-accidentally. First, a clinically observed coincidence of SDH, retinal . .
Cited – Kelvin Dial (otherwise called Peter), Andrew Dottin (otherwise called Maxwell) v The State PC 14-Feb-2005
(Trinidad and Tobago) Two defendants appealed against their convictions for murder. The principal witness who had identified them, had retracted his evidence, but the retraction had not been believed. He was then shown to have lied.
Held: The . .
Cited – Hakala, Regina v CACD 19-Mar-2002
. .
Cited – Regina v Ishtiaq Ahmed CACD 6-Dec-2002
Approach to fresh evidence produced on appeal. . .
Cited – Regina v James Hanratty (Deceased) CACD 10-May-2002
Posthumous Appeal – Clear Purpose and Care Needed
An appeal was presented against the conviction for a murder many years earlier. The prosecution sought to introduce DNA evidence to support its case. The appellant party objected.
Held: The purpose of the appeal was to achieve justice, and . .
First Appeal – Noye, Regina v CACD 10-Oct-2001
. .
Cited – Weiss v Regina 15-Dec-2005
(High Court of Australia) The High Court may dismiss the appeal if it considers that no substantial miscarriage of justice actually occurred. What is involved in assessing that question in the context of a trial by jury. . .
Tariff – Noye, Regina v QBD 25-Jun-2010
Review of minimum term after conviction for murder. . .
Cited – Shane Huia Matenga v The Queen 13-Mar-2009
(Supreme Court of New Zealand) Whether to set aside jury’s verdict – miscarriage of justice . .

Cited by:
Cited – S and Others v Regina CACD 28-Jun-2012
Four defendants appealed against convictions for child sex abuse. The convictions had taken place at a time when current guidance to examining physicians did not apply. In each case the defendants consented to new evidence from the prosecution.
Crime

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.430741

[1996] EWHC Admin 249
Bailii
England and Wales

Crime

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.136797

Application on behalf of the Solicitor General for permission to make a Reference to this Court, under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988

[2021] EWCA Crim 1161
Bailii
England and Wales

Crime

Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.668287

The appellants were said to have made false mortgage applications. They appealed convictions for dishonestly obtaining property by deception.
Held: A chose in action created by an electronic bank transfer was not property which was capable of being ‘obtained’ by deception under the Theft Act. The transfer of funds was carried out by the debiting of one account and the crediting of another, and was merely the extinction and creation of choses in action. The definition of pecuniary advantage in s.16(1) of the 1968 Act does not extend to loans secured by way of mortgage.

Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Lord Chancellor, Lord Goff of Chieveley, Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle, Lord Slynn of Hadley, Lord Hoffmann
Gazette 29-Aug-1996, Times 11-Jul-1996, [1996] 3 WLR 255, [1996] 3 All ER 481, [1996] AC 815, HL/PO/JU/18/256, [1996] 2 Cr App R 524
Bailii
Theft Act 1968 15(1) 16(1)
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Regina v Preddy; Regina v Slade; Regina v Dhillon (Conjoined Appeals) CACD 1995
The electronic transfer of funds moves no identifiable property capable of being the subject of a charge of obtaining property by deception. . .
Cited – Attorney-General of Hong Kong v Nai-Keung PC 1987
Textile export quotas (a permission to export textiles) which were surplus to the exporter’s requirements, which could be bought and sold under the apprpriate Hong Kong legislation, may be ‘property’ for the purposes of the law of theft. . .
Cited – Regina v Danger 1857
The defendant was charged with obtaining a valuable security by false pretences, on the basis that he had presented a bill to the prosecutor who accepted it and returned it to the defendant, his acceptance having been induced by false pretences on . .
Wrongly decided – Regina v Duru CACD 1974
The defendants were accused of involvement in mortgage frauds perpetrated on a local authority. The advances were made by cheque, and the defendants were charged with obtaining the cheques by deception. The principal question for consideration was . .
Wrongly decided – Regina v Mitchell CACD 1993
. .
Cited – Regina v Halai CACD 15-Jul-1982
The defendant went to his solicitor, who was also an agent of a building society, to raise a mortgage to purchase a house. The defendant gave false details in the form which was intended to induce the building society to make an advance. He signed . .
Cited – Regina v Teong Sun Chuah CACD 1991
. .
Cited – Target Holdings Ltd v Redferns (A Firm) and Another HL 21-Jul-1995
The defendant solicitors had acted for a purchaser, Crowngate, which had agreed to buy a property from a company called Mirage for andpound;775,000. Crowngate had arranged however that the property would first be passed through a chain of two . .

Cited by:
Followed – Regina v Cooke CACD 24-Jan-1997
The defendant had been convicted of a mortgage fraud, but sought leave to appeal out of time in the light of Preddy.
Held: ‘In the light of Graham and upon our reading of section 1 of the 1978 Act we consider that the wording of subsection (2) . .
Cited – Regina v Klineberg; Regina v Marsden CACD 19-Nov-1998
When money had been received on a trust to send to a stakeholder but was misappropriated, the money still belonged to the payer, and a prosecution for theft was correct. This was different from cases where money was spent for the purposes stated. . .
Applied – Regina v Adebayo CACD 7-Jul-1997
The defendant had been employed in the probate registry, and sought by deception to conspire with others to use the information he obtained to obtain money from estates. He appealed, saying that the court should not have convicted him of obtaining . .
Cited – Regina v Hedworth CACD 20-Sep-1996
The court allowed amendment of the indictment to reflect the law as demonstrated in Preddy, and at a preparatory hearing application was made to quash the amended indictment on the basis that the charges were not supported by evidence in the . .
Applied – Regina v Naviede CACD 21-Mar-1997
The defendant appealed from his conviction for dishonesty. He said that he should have allowed hi to represent himself as to certain aspect of his case, but to have legal representation for others.
Held: The judge was right to reject such a . .
Cited – Regina v Briggs (Joan) CACD 12-Dec-2003
The defendant appealed her conviction for theft. She had involved herself in the sale of an elderly relatives house and arranged for a new house to be bought in her and another name.
Held: Hilton was to be distinguished. There, the defendant . .
Cited – Regina v Hilton CACD 7-Mar-1997
The defendant on a theft charge was a signatory on an account and caused money to be transferred to other accounts.
Held: The instructions to the bank had caused the transfers, and the defendant had therefore misappropriated the credit balance . .
Cited – Smith (Wallace Duncan), Regina v (No 4) CACD 17-Mar-2004
The defendant appealed convictions for fraudulent trading and obtaining property by deception, saying that the English court could not prosecute an offence committed principally in the US.
Held: Provided some substantial element (here the . .
Applied – Regina v Dawson, Dawson CACD 14-Jul-1997
The defendants were convicted of a mortgage fraud. They appealed saying they had not been dishonest. They had signed forms, but they then had been completed by others, and that it had been those further replies which were dishonest. The original . .
Cited – Assets Recovery Agency v Olupitan and Another QBD 8-Feb-2007
The claimant was responsible for recovering money under the 2002 Act, and alleged that the first defendant had been engaged in a mortgage fraud.
Held: To succeed in such a claim for recovery the Claimant must prove, ‘on a balance of . .
Cited – White v Regina CACD 15-Apr-2014
The defendant sought an extension of time for leave to appeal against his conviction for fraud. After his conviction there had been academic debate as to its basis, and the present application was not opposed. He had originally been charged under . .
Cited – Regina v Kansal (2) HL 29-Nov-2001
The prosecutor had lead and relied at trial on evidence obtained by compulsory questioning under the 1986 Act.
Held: In doing so the prosecutor was acting to give effect to section 433.
The decision in Lambert to disallow retrospective . .
Cited – Regina v Kansal, on a Reference From the Criminal Cases Review Commission (2) CACD 24-May-2001
Once a case had been referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the court had to make a declaration, even if the case was very old. The effect of the 1998 Act on statute law was not retrospective, but where it affected . .
Cited – Marshall, Regina v CACD 6-Mar-1998
Sale of Unexpired Portion of Ticket can be a Theft
The defendants had been using London Underground tickets, but selling on the unused balance after their journey. On a ruling at trial, they pleaded guilty to theft, but now appealed.
Held: The appeals failed. Although the tickets had passed to . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.87567

Lord Lane CJ said: ‘It seems to us that where the unlawful application of force and the eventual act causing death are parts of the same sequence of events, the same transaction, the fact that there is an appreciable interval of time between the two does not serve to exonerate the defendant from liability. That is certainly so where the appellant’s subsequent actions which caused death, after the initial unlawful blow, a designed to conceal his commission of the original unlawful assault.
It would be possible to express the problem as one of causation. The original unlawful blow to the chin was a causa sine qua non of the later actus reus. It was the opening event in a series which was to culminate in death: the first link in the chain of causation, to use another metaphor. It cannot be said that the actions of the appellant in dragging the victim away with the intention of evading liability broke the chain which linked the initial blow with the death.’

Lord Lane CJ
[1991] 4 All ER 673, [1992] QB 61, [1991] 3 WLR 653
England and Wales

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.550150

No fear, no offence

The defendant appealed against a conviction under section 4 of the 1986 Act. He had punched the victim unexpectedly and from behind, knocking him out. He argued that there was no evidence that he had caused the victim to believe that violence was to be used.
Held: While the evidence brought nothing but shame on the defendant, there was no evidence of any intention to cause the victim to believe anything, let alone that he was to be attacked. The appeal succeeded.

Moses LJ, Irwin J
[2012] EWHC 606 (Admin)
Bailii
Public Order Act 1986 4
England and Wales

Crime

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.452668

The defendant appealed against his conviction for assault. He had pleaded guilty after a ruling by the judge as to the meaning of the phrase ‘a defect of reason, from disease of the mind’ within the meaning of the M’Naughten Rules. More particularly the question is whether a person who commits a criminal act whilst under the effects of hypoglycaemia can raise a defence of automatism, as the Appellants submitted was possible, or whether such a person must rely on a defence of insanity if he wishes to relieve himself of responsibility for his acts, as Mr. Justice Bridge ruled.
Held: Quick’s alleged mental condition, if it ever existed, was not caused by his diabetes but by his use of the insulin prescribed by his doctor. Such malfunctioning of his mind as there was, was caused by an external factor and not by a bodily disorder in the nature of a disease which disturbed the working of his mind. It follows in our judgment that Quick was entitled to have his defence of automatism left to the jury and that Mr. Justice Bridge’s ruling as to the effect of the medical evidence called by him was wrong.

Lawton LJ, Mocatta, Milmo JJ
[1973] QB 910, [1973] EWCA Crim 1, (1973) 137 JP 763, [1973] 3 All ER 347, (1973) 57 Cr App Rep 722, [1973] 3 WLR 26
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Bratty v Attorney General of Northern Ireland HL 3-Oct-1961
The Court of Criminal Appeal of Northern Ireland certified that their decision involved two points of law of general public importance, namely whether, the defendant’s plea of insanity having been rejected by the jury, it was open to the accused to . .
Mentioned – Regina v Charlson 1955
The court proceeded on the assumption that diseases such as epilepsy or cerebral tumour are not diseases of the mind, even when they are such as to manifest themselves in violence. . .
Cited – Regina v Kemp 1957
The defendant appealed against his conviction for assault. The violent act was alleged to have been done during a period of unconsciousness arising from arteriosclerosis. His counsel submitted that his client had done what he had during a period of . .
Mentioned – Kay v Butterworth KBD 1945
The defendant had been charged only with driving to the danger of the public and with driving without due care and attention. He was acquitted by the justices and the prosecutor appealed.
Held: He should have been convicted of both offences . .
Cited – Hill v Baxter QBD 1958
The Court was asked whether the accused had put forward sufficient evidence on a charge of dangerous driving to justify the justices adjudging that he should be acquitted, there having been no dispute that at the time when his car collided with . .
Cited – Watmore v Jenkins QBD 1962
The justices had decided that a diabetic motorist charged with dangerous driving, and saying that he had done so during a hypo-glycaemic episode, should be acquitted on the ground that he was in a state of automatism. The prosecution appealed.
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Roach CACD 4-Dec-2001
The defendant appealed a conviction for unlawful wounding, claiming a defence of automatism. Witnesses described his behaviour during the incident in ways which suggested this not to be the case. Medical evidence suggested he was capable of acting . .
Cited – Regina v Cogan and Another CACD 9-Jun-1975
The defendants appealed againts their convictions for rape and against sentence. The victims was the second defendant’s wide.
Held: Applying Morgan, the first defendant’s belief that the victim was consenting was an answer to the charge. His . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.183192

The defendant knew that he had gonorrhea. He had intercourse with his wife, and infected her. She would not have consented had she known. He appealed his convictions for assault and causing grievous bodily harm.
Held: ‘The question in this case is whether a man who knows that he has gonorrhea, and who by having connection with his wife, who does not know it, infects her, is or is not guilty under s20 . . or under s47 of the same [1861] Act. Section 20 punishes everyone who ‘unlawfully and maliciously inflicts any grievous bodily harm upon any person.’ Section 47 punished everyone who is convicted of an ‘assault occasioning actual bodily harm to any person . .’ Is there an infliction of bodily harm either with or without any weapon or instrument?’ I think there is not for the following reasons.
The words appear to me to mean the direct causing of some grievous injury to the body itself with a weapon, as by a cut with a knife, or without a weapon, as by a blow with the fist, or by pushing a person down. Indeed, though the word ‘assault’ is not used in the section, I think the words imply an assault and battery of which a wound or grievous bodily harm is the manifest immediate and obvious result . . It is further illustrated by reference to 14 and 15 Vict. C19 sect 4, of which the present section is a re-enactment. Section 4 of the earlier Act begins with the preamble, ‘And whereas it is expedient to make further provision for the punishment of aggravated assaults,’ and then proceeds in the words of the present section, with a trifling and unimportant difference in their arrangement.
Infection by the application of an animal poison appears to me to be of a different character from an assault. The administration of poison is dealt with under s24, which would be superfluous if poisoning were an ‘infliction of grievous bodily harm either with or without a weapon or instrument.’ The one act differs from the other in the immediate and necessary connection between a cut or a blow and the wound or harm inflicted, and the uncertain and delayed operation of the act by which infection is communicated. If a man by the grasp of the hand infects another with smallpox, it is impossible to trace out in detail the connection between the act and the disease, and it would, I think, be an unnatural use of language to say that a man by such an act ‘inflicted’ smallpox on another . . .
Is the case, then, within s37, as ‘an assault occasioning actual bodily harm?’ The question here is whether there is an assault. It is said there is none, because the woman consented, and to this it is replied that fraud vitiates consent, and that the prisoner’s silence was a fraud. Apart however from this, is the man’s concealment of the fact that he was infected such a fraud as vitiated the wife’s consent to the exercise of his marital rights, and converted the act of connection into an assault? It seems to me that the proposition that fraud vitiates consent in criminal matters is not true if taken to apply in the fullest sense of the word, and without qualifications. It is too short to be true, as a mathematical formula is true.’ As to the issue of consent to an assault, per Pollock B: ‘The second count charges an assault … I should be inclined to hold that … an assault must in all cases be an act which in itself is illegal and … I cannot assent to the proposition that there is any true analogy between the case of a man who does an act which in the absence of consent amounts to an indecent assault upon his niece, or any woman other than his wife, and the case of a man having connection with his wife. In the one case the act is, taken by itself, in its inception an unlawful act, and it would continue to be unlawful but for the consent. The husband’s connection with his wife is not only lawful, but it is in accordance with the ordinary condition of married life. … The wife as to the connection itself is in a different position from any other woman, for she has no right or power to refuse her consent.’
Stephen J said: ‘If a man laid a trap for another into which he fell after an interval the man who laid it would during the interval be guilty of an attempt to assault and of an actual assault as soon as the man fell in.’
However: ‘It seems to me that the proposition of fraud vitiates consent in criminal matters is not true if taken to apply the fullest sense of the word, and without qualification.’ and ‘Many seductions would be rapes, and so might acts of prostitution procured by fraud, as for instance by promises not intended to be fulfilled.’
. . And: ‘Consent to a surgical operation or examination is not a consent to sexual connection or indecent behaviour. Consent to connection with a husband is not consent to adultery.
I do not think that the maxim that fraud vitiates consent can be carried further than this in criminal matters. It is commonly applied to cases of contract, because in all cases of contract the evidence of a consent not procured by force or fraud is essential, but even in these cases care in the application of the maxim is required, because in some instances suppression of the truth operates as fraud, whereas in others at least a suggestion of falsehood is required. The act of intercourse between a man and woman cannot in any case be regarded as the performance of a contract.’
. . and ‘The woman’s consent here was as full and conscious as consent could be. It was not obtained by any fraud as to the nature of the act or as to the identity of the agent.’
Wills J said: ‘That consent obtained by fraud is no consent at all is not true is a general proposition either in fact or in law. If a man meets a woman in the street and knowingly gives her bad money in order to procure her consent to intercourse with him, he obtains her consent by fraud, but it would be childish to say that she did not consent. In respect of a contract, fraud does not destroy consent. It only makes it revocable.’

Stephen J, Baron Pollock, AL Smith J
(1888) 22 QBD 23, [1886-90] All ER Rep 133, [1888] UKLawRpKQB 175, (1888) 59 LT 780, (1888) 58 LJMC 10, (1888) 53 JP 1-19
Cmmonlii
Offences against the Persons Act 1861 20 46
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Taylor 1869
It was ‘contrary to common sense’ to describe the infliction of a sexually transmitted disease as an assault. A prisoner could upon an indictment under the section be convicted of a common assault, because each offence (‘wounding’ and ‘infliucting . .

Cited by:
Considered – Regina v Tabassum CACD 11-May-2000
The defendant had pretended to be medically qualified in order to obtain the opportunity to examine women’s breasts. He appealed against his conviction for indecent assault, saying that the complainants had consented to the examinations.
Held: . .
Cited – Regina v Brown (Anthony); Regina v Lucas; etc HL 11-Mar-1993
The appellants had been convicted of assault, after having engaged in consensual acts of sado-masochism in which they inflicted varying degreees of physical self harm. They had pleaded guilty after a ruling that the prosecution had not needed to . .
Clarified – Regina v R HL 23-Oct-1991
H has no right to sexual intercourse with W – rape
The defendant appealed against his conviction for having raped his wife, saying that intercourse with his wife was necessarily lawful, and therefore outside the statutory definition of rape. Due to the matrimonial difficulties, the wife had left . .
Overruled – Regina v Dica CACD 5-May-2004
Reckless HIV transmission – Grievous Bodily Harm
The defendant appealed against his conviction for inflicting grievous bodily harm. He had HIV/Aids, and was found to have transmitted the disease by intercourse when the victims were not informed of his condition. It was not suggested that any rape . .
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Santa-Bermudez Admn 13-Nov-2003
The prosecutor appealed a finding of no case to answer on an accusation of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The victim, a police officer, was searching the pockets of an arrested person, when she was injured by a hypodermic needle. She had . .
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v K (a Minor) QBD 1990
The defendant a schoolboy aged 15 had spilled some acid during a chemistry lesson. He went to wash his hands, but took a test tube of acid with him. Hearing others coming and panicking, he poured it into an upturned hot air drier. He returned to . .
Cited – Total Network Sl v Revenue and Customs HL 12-Mar-2008
The House was asked whether an action for unlawful means conspiracy was available against a participant in a missing trader intra-community, or carousel, fraud. The company appealed a finding of liability saying that the VAT Act and Regulations . .
Cited – Regina v Linekar CACD 21-Oct-1994
L appealed against his conviction for rape. His victim was a woman working as a prostitute. He said that he had simply made off afterwards without payment. He was convicted on the basis that he had procured the act by a false pretence by him that he . .
Cited – Monica, Regina (on The Application of) v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 14-Dec-2018
Deception as to identity did not undermine consent
The claimant had been an environmental campaigner. She had had a sexual relationship with a man who was unknown to her an undercover police officer. She now challenged the decision not to prosecute him for rape.
Held: Her claim failed. Case . .
Cited – Lawrance, Regina v CACD 23-Jul-2020
Consent not removed by Lie as to Vasectomy
The defendant appealed from his conviction of rape. He had represented to his victim that he had had a vasectomy to secure consent which the court found had been vitiated.
Held: The appeal was allowed. Could a lie about fertility negate . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.182069

The defendant took a cocktail of drink and drugs and, whilst intoxicated, assaulted pub landlord. He said that he did not know what he was doing, and had no mens rea, that self-induced intoxication could be a defence to a charge of assault, and that the judge had misdirected the jury on the issue.
Held: The appeal failed. Whilst it is not blameworthy to do something involving a risk of injury to another if one genuinely does not perceive the risk, self-induced intoxication which destroys such a perception is not a sufficent defence in law. ‘A specific intent requires something more than contemplation of the prohibited act and foresight of its probable consequences. The mens rea in a crime of specific intent requires proof of a purposive element.’ The intoxication was the defendant’s own voluntary and reckless act, and set a mens rea for crimes of basic intent.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale, Lord Elwyn-Jones, Lord Kilbrandon, Lord Salmon, Lord Edmond-Davies, Lord Russell of Killowen, Lord Diplock
[1977] AC 443, [1976] 2 All ER 1542, [1976] UKHL 2
Bailii
Criminal Justice Act 1967 8
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Director of Public Prosecutions v Majewski CACD 1975
The defendant appealed against his conviction for assault saying that he was so intoxicated on drink and drugs at the time that he did not have mens rea.
Held: The appeal failed. The court certified a question for the House of Lords namely: . .
Cited – Regina v Tolson CCR 11-May-1889
Honest and Reasonable mistake – No Bigamy
The defendant appealed against her conviction for bigamy, saying that she had acted in a mistaken belief.
Held: A man commits bigamy if he goes through a marriage ceremony while his wife is alive, even though he honestly and reasonably . .
Cited – Regina v Morgan HL 30-Apr-1975
The defendants appealed against their convictions for rape, denying mens rea and asserting a belief (even if mistaken) that the victim had consented.
Held: For a defence of mistake to succeed, the mistake must have been honestly made and need . .
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Beard HL 1920
The accused raped a girl aged thirteen whilst he was drunk. He placed his hand over her mouth to stop her screaming, but without any intention of injuring her. He caused her death by suffocation, and was convicted of murder. It was argued on his . .
Cited – Regina v Venna CACD 31-Jul-1975
An assault is an act by which the defendant intentionally or recklessly causes the complainant to apprehend immediate, or to sustain, unlawful personal violence. The jury ought to be directed that the defendant cannot be guilty of an assault unless . .
Cited – Bratty v Attorney General of Northern Ireland HL 3-Oct-1961
The Court of Criminal Appeal of Northern Ireland certified that their decision involved two points of law of general public importance, namely whether, the defendant’s plea of insanity having been rejected by the jury, it was open to the accused to . .
Cited – Attorney-General for Northern Ireland v Gallagher HL 1961
The defendant appealed against his conviction for the murder of his wife. The court allowed his appeal on the ground of a misdirection. The prosecutor having now appealed, he sought to plead insanity.
Held: The appeal was allowed on the new . .
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Smith HL 1960
The defendant tried to avoid arrest and killed a policeman by driving off with the policeman clinging to the car.
Held: (1) The defendant committed murder because death or grievous bodily harm was foreseen by him as a ‘likely’ result of his . .

Cited by:
Cited – Regina v G and R HL 16-Oct-2003
The defendants, young boys, had set fire to paper and thrown the lit papers into a wheelie bin, expecting the fire to go out. In fact substantial damage was caused. The House was asked whether a conviction was proper under the section where the . .
Cited – Jaggard v Dickinson QBD 1980
The defendant broke two windows and damaged a curtain in the house of a stranger. She was drunk. She was charged under the 1971 Act, but she raised her honest but drunken and mistaken belief that the house belonged to a friend who would have . .
Cited – Regina v O’Grady CACD 1987
The defendant and his associate drank substantial quantities of cider. They then fought and the defendant killed the associate. His defence was that he mistakenly thought his friend was attacking him. He appealed his conviction for manslaughter.
Cited – Regina v Hatton (Jonathan) CACD 26-Oct-2005
The defendant appealed his conviction for murder saying that his defence of having killed by virtue of a mistake which arose from his self-induced intoxication should have been allowed.
Held: The appeal failed. It had been argued that the . .
Cited – Regina v Kingston CACD 10-May-1993
The defendant and a co-accused had sexually assaulted a boy. He appealed saying that the co-defendant had secretly administered drugs to him.
Held: The appeal succeeded. Involuntary intoxication can be a sufficient defence to a criminal . .
Cited – Regina v Kingston HL 22-Jul-1994
Involuntary Intoxication not a General Defence
The prosecutor appealed an acquittal on appeal of the defendant for sexual assault, saying that he had not had the necessary intent because of intoxication through drink and drugs. He said that a co-defendant had secretly administered drugs to him. . .
Cited – Achogbuo, Regina v CACD 19-Mar-2014
The Court considered a renewed application for leave to appeal which the Registrar had considered to be without merit and was referred under section 20 of the 1968 Act.
Held: The reference had been properly made. The application for extension . .
Cited – Regina v Daniel CACD 1977
The applicant renewed his application for leave to appeal, which had been refused by the single judge. He instructed solicitors who wrote to the court to advise that they intended to instruct Counsel on the renewed application. Due to an . .
Cited – Yasain, Regina v CACD 16-Jul-2015
The Court was asked as to the powers of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division to re-open an appeal to correct an error which is said to have caused real injustice in that the error led to the quashing of a sentence lawfully imposed in the Crown . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.186842

The defendants appealed against their convictions for rape, denying mens rea and asserting a belief (even if mistaken) that the victim had consented.
Held: For a defence of mistake to succeed, the mistake must have been honestly made and need not have been reasonably held. Where a defendant had sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent but believing she did consent, he was not guilty of rape even though he might have no reasonable grounds for his belief. The intent to commit rape involves an intention to have intercourse without the woman’s consent or with a reckless indifference to whether she consents or not.
Lord Cross said: ‘section 1 of the 1956 Act does not say that a man who has sexual intercourse with a woman who does not consent to it commits an offence; it says that a man who rapes a woman commits an offence. Rape is not a word in the use of which lawyers have a monopoly and the question to be answered in this case, as I see it, is whether according to the ordinary use of the English language a man can be said to have committed rape if he believed that the woman was consenting to the intercourse and would not have attempted to have it but for his belief, whatever his grounds for so believing. I do not think that he can.’
Lord Hailsham said: ‘Once one has accepted, what seems to me abundantly clear, that the prohibited act in rape is non-consensual sexual intercourse, and that the guilty state of mind is an intention to commit it, it seems to me to follow as a matter of inexorable logic that there is no room either for a ‘defence’ of honest belief or mistake, or of a defence of honest and reasonable belief and mistake. Either the prosecution proves that the accused had the requisite intent, or it does not. In the former case it succeeds, and in the latter it fails. Since honest belief clearly negatives intent, the reasonableness or otherwise of that belief can only be evidence.’
Lord Simon of Glaisdale said: ‘ By ‘crimes of basic intent’ I mean those crimes whose definition expresses (or, more often, implies) a mens rea which does not go beyond the actus reus. The actus reus generally consists of an act and some consequence. The consequence may be very closely connected with the act or more remotely connected with it: but with a crime of basic intent the mens rea does not extend beyond the act and its consequence however remote as defined in the actus reus. I take assault as an example of a crime of basic intent where the consequence is very closely connected with the act. The actus reus of assault is an act which causes another person to apprehend immediate and unlawful violence. The mens rea corresponds exactly. The prosecution must prove that the accused foresaw that his act would probably cause another person to have apprehension of immediate and unlawful violence or would possibly have that consequence, such being the purpose of the act, or that he was reckless as to whether or not his act caused such apprehension. This foresight (the term of art is ‘intention’) or recklessness is the mens rea in assault.
For an example of a crime of basic intent where the consequence of the act involved in the actus reus as defined in the crime is less immediate, I take the crime of unlawful wounding. The act is, say, the squeezing of a trigger. A number of consequences (mechanical, chemical, ballistic and physiological) intervene before the final consequence involved in the defined actus reus-namely, the wounding of another person in circumstances unjustified by law. But again here the mens rea corresponds closely to the actus reus. The prosecution must prove that the accused foresaw that some physical harm would ensue to another person in circumstances unjustified by law as a probable (or possible and desired) consequence of his act, or that he was reckless as to whether or not such consequence ensued.’

Lord Edmund-Davies, Lord Cross of Chelsea, Lord Hailsham of St. Marylebone, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, Lord Fraser of Tullybelton
[1976] AC 182, [1975] 1 All ER 8, [1975] UKHL 3
Bailii
Sexual Offences Act 1956 1
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Weston 1879
. .
Cited – Regina v Tolson CCR 11-May-1889
Honest and Reasonable mistake – No Bigamy
The defendant appealed against her conviction for bigamy, saying that she had acted in a mistaken belief.
Held: A man commits bigamy if he goes through a marriage ceremony while his wife is alive, even though he honestly and reasonably . .
Cited – Sweet v Parsley HL 23-Jan-1969
Mens Rea essential element of statutory Offence
The appellant had been convicted under the Act 1965 of having been concerned in the management of premises used for smoking cannabis. This was a farmhouse which she visited infrequently. The prosecutor had conceded that she was unaware that the . .
Cited – Woolmington v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 23-May-1935
Golden Thread of British Justice – Proof of Intent
The appellant had been convicted of the murder of his wife. She had left him and returned to live with her mother. He went to the house. He said he intended to frighten her that he would kill himself if she did not return. He wired a shotgun to . .
Cited – Regina v Hyam HL 1974
The defendant had burnt down the house of her rival in love, thereby killing her children. The judge directed the jury to convict the defendant of murder if she knew that it was highly probable that her act would cause death or serious bodily harm. . .
Cited – Regina v Chisam CCA 1963
A defendant’s belief founding a plea of self defence must be both honest and reasonable. A sufficient justification was established if the accused genuinely believed on reasonable grounds that a relative or friend was in imminent danger of injury, . .
Cited – Regona v Sperotto and Salvietti 1970
(Court of Criminal Appeal of New South Wales) The court considered the mental element in the crime of rape: ‘In all crimes at common law a guilty intention is a necessary element and with the crime of rape this intention is to have carnal knowledge . .
Cited – Warner v Metropolitan Police Commissioner HL 1968
The appellant had been convicted of an offence contrary to section 1 of the 1964 Act, of having been found in possession of drugs.
Held: (Reid dissenting) The prosecution had only to prove that the accused knew of the existence of the thing . .
Cited – Regina v Gould CACD 1968
Diplock LJ said: ‘In its criminal jurisdiction, which it has inherited from the Court of Criminal Appeal, the Court of Appeal does not apply the doctrine of stare decisis with the same rigidity as in its civil jurisdiction. If upon due consideration . .
Cited – Rex v Steane 1947
The defendant was charged with an offence requiring an ‘ulterior intent’, which he denied having.
Held: Lord Goddard discussed the direction to the jury: ‘if on the totality of the evidence there is room for more than one view as to the intent . .
Cited – Regina v King 1964
. .
Cited – Regina v Wright 1864
The defendant faced charges of rape and of assault with intent to commit rape. The court was asked whether a jury could convict without being convinced that rape was in his mind.
Held: Channell B directed the jury: ‘even to convict of an . .
Cited – Regina v Horton 1871
The defendant was convicted of bigamy.
Held: Whilst there is a presumption that he knew of the circumstamnces creating the offence, that presumprion was not conclusive. . .
Cited – Regina v Flattery 1877
The victim of the rape alleged that she had agreed to a surgical procedure which she hoped would cure her fits.
Held: Denman J said: ‘There is one case where a woman does not consent to the act of connection and yet the man may not be guilty . .
Cited – Regina v Hornbuckle 1945
The defendant answered the charge of rape by saying that he had been drunk.
Held: Lowe J said: ‘To hold that knowledge that the act of intercourse was occurring sufficiently establishes the intent, [to have intercourse without consent] because . .
Cited – Regina v Buries 1947
The defendant said in answer to a charge of rape that he knew he had the woman’s consent because both by word and by deed she plainly told him so. The jury clearly disbelieved him. On appeal he asked the court whether the jury should have been . .
Cited – Regina v King 1964
. .
Cited – Regina v Flaherty and Others 1968
Asprey J considered the mistakae as to the woman’s consent as a defence to a charge of rape: ‘a long line of authority establishes, at any rate so far as I am concerned, that the defence of mistake requires that the accused holds both an honest and . .
Cited – Regina v Daly 1968
The court considered the availability of mistake as to consent as a defence to a charge of rape: ‘What the learned trial judge did in the present case was to omit from the definition of rape that he gave to the jury all reference to the element of . .
Cited – Devlin v Armstrong CANI 1971
The defendant faced a charge of riot. He said that he had held an honest and reasonable belief that the police were about to behave unlawfully.
Held: The Court assumed that the accused did honestly and reasonably so believe, but held that for . .
Cited – Regina v Flannery and Prendergast 1969
(Supreme Court of Victoria) On the defendant’s trial for rape, the judge directed the jury: ‘It is a defence in a charge of rape if a person honestly believed on reasonable grounds that the girl in fact was a consenting party. That involves three . .

Cited by:
Cited – Regina v G and R HL 16-Oct-2003
The defendants, young boys, had set fire to paper and thrown the lit papers into a wheelie bin, expecting the fire to go out. In fact substantial damage was caused. The House was asked whether a conviction was proper under the section where the . .
Applied – Regina v Kimber CACD 1983
For mens rea, it is the defendant’s belief, not the grounds on which it is based, which goes to negative the intent. The guilty state of mind was the intent to use personal violence to a woman without her consent. If the defendant did not so intend, . .
Limited – Regina v Phekoo CACD 1981
The defendant was charged with doing acts calculated to interfere with the peace and comfort of residential occupiers so as to cause them to give up their occupation contrary to section 1(3)(a) of the 1977 Act. The defendant contended that he did . .
Applied – Beckford v The Queen PC 15-Jun-1987
(Jamaica) Self defence permits a defendant to use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances as he honestly believed them to be. ‘If then a genuine belief, albeit without reasonable grounds, is a defence to rape because it negatives the . .
Cited – B (A Minor) v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 23-Feb-2000
Prosecution to prove absence of genuine belief
To convict a defendant under the 1960 Act, the prosecution had the burden of proving the absence of a genuine belief in the defendant’s mind that the victim was 14 or over. The Act itself said nothing about any mental element, so the assumption must . .
Cited – Ashley and Another v Sussex Police CA 27-Jul-2006
The deceased was shot by police officers raiding his flat in 1998. The claimants sought damages for his estate. They had succeeded in claiming damages for false imprisonment, but now appealed dismissal of their claim for damages for assault and . .
Cited – Ashley and Another v Chief Constable of Sussex Police HL 23-Apr-2008
The claimants sought to bring an action for damages after a family member suspected of dealing drugs, was shot by the police. At the time he was naked. The police officer had been acquitted by a criminal court of murder. The chief constable now . .
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Majewski HL 1976
The defendant took a cocktail of drink and drugs and, whilst intoxicated, assaulted pub landlord. He said that he did not know what he was doing, and had no mens rea, that self-induced intoxication could be a defence to a charge of assault, and that . .
Cited – Regina v Cogan and Another CACD 9-Jun-1975
The defendants appealed againts their convictions for rape and against sentence. The victims was the second defendant’s wide.
Held: Applying Morgan, the first defendant’s belief that the victim was consenting was an answer to the charge. His . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.186843

Use of Illegally Obtained Passwords not Forgery

The defendants had obtained password and ID information sufficient to secure access to British Telecom’s Prestel Service. They appealed against convictions under the 1981 Act after using the access codes to log in. Having gained such access they obtained information to which they were not entitled; made unauthorised alterations to stored data; and caused charges to be made to account-holders without their knowledge or consent.
Held: The appeals succeeded.
Lord Lane CJ said: ‘In our judgment the user segment in the instant case does not carry the necessary two types of message to bring it within the ambit of forgery at all. Moreover, neither the report nor the Act, so it seems to us, seeks to deal with information that is held for a moment whilst automatic checking takes place and is then expunged. That process is not one to which the words ‘recorded or stored’ can properly be applied, suggesting as they do a degree of continuance.
There is a further difficulty. The prosecution had to prove that the appellants intended that someone should accept as genuine the false instrument which they had made. The suggestion here is that it was a machine (under section 10(3)) which the appellants intended to induce to respond to the false instrument. But the machine (i.e., the user segment) which was intended, so it was said, to be induced seems to be the very thing which was said to be the false instrument (i.e., the user segment) which was inducing the belief. If that is a correct analysis, the prosecution case is reduced to an absurdity.
We have accordingly come to the conclusion that the language of the Act was not intended to apply to the situation which was shown to exist in this case. The submissions at the close of the prosecution case should have succeeded. It is a conclusion which we reach without regret. The Procrustean attempt to force these facts into the language of an Act not designed to fit them produced grave difficulties for both judge and jury which we would not wish to see repeated. The appellants’ conduct amounted in essence, as already stated, to dishonestly gaining access to the relevant Prestel data bank by a trick. That is not a criminal offence. If it is thought desirable to make it so, that is a matter for the legislature rather than the courts. We express no view on the matter. Our decision on this aspect of the case makes it unnecessary to determine the other issues raised by the appellants, in particular the submission that they should be found not guilty of forgery when there was no evidence that either of them had any inkling that what they were doing might amount to a contravention of the Act.’

Lord Lane CJ, Leonard and Rose JJ
[1987] QB 1116
Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981
England and Wales
Cited by:
Appeal from – Regina v Gold and Schifreen HL 21-Apr-1988
The defendants had hacked a remote computer system, by the unauthorised use of the passwords and IDs of other users of the system. The ID and password were immediately cleared by the computer once authorisation for access had been granted. They had . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.448083

The court considered the offence of child trafficking. The defendants had been the victims of such offences and used for managing cannabis production. It was argued that neither defendant should have been prosecuted.
Held: The appeals failed. The defence of duress should not be extended for a new category, that of victims of people trafficking, but rather awareness that a defendant might be a victim requires consideration of the offence of duress by a prosecutor in deciding whether to proceed. Whilst there were omissions in the consideration, on the evidence as a whole, N’s case was subject to mitigation, but no more on the facts.

Lord Judge LCJ, Royce, Globe JJ
[2012] EWCA Crim 189
Bailii
Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings 2005 4
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v SK CACD 8-Jul-2011
The defendant appealed against her conviction for trafficking a complainant into the United Kingdom for the purposes of exploitation, contrary to section 4 of the 2004 Act.
Held: The appeal succeeded, and a retrial ordered. The court . .
Cited – O, Regina v CACD 2-Sep-2008
The defendant agirl in her mid teens, appealed against her conviction for carrying a false identity card.
Held: The appeal was not opposed. The United Kingdom having signed the Convention on Action against People Trafficking was bound to . .
Cited – Mullen, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department HL 29-Apr-2004
The claimant had been imprisoned, but his conviction was later overturned. He had been a victim of a gross abuse of executive power. The British authorities had acted in breach of international law and had been guilty of ‘a blatant and extremely . .
Cited – Rantsev v Cyprus And Russia ECHR 7-Jan-2010
A Russian woman, aged 20, had gone to work as an artiste in a cabaret in Cyprus. Three weeks later she was found dead in a street.
Held: The Court upheld her father’s complaint that Cyprus was in breach of article 4 in that its regime for the . .
Cited – LM and Others v Regina; Regina v M(L), B(M) and G(D) CACD 21-Oct-2010
Each defendant appealed saying that being themselves the victims of people trafficking, the prosecutions had failed to take into account its obligations under the Convention.
Held: Prosecutors had ‘a three-stage exercise of judgment. The first . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.451410

Voluntary drunkenness No Diminished Responsibility

The defendant had been convicted of murder. At the time of the assault, he was both intoxicated to the point of losing his inhibitions and was also suffering an abnormality of mind sufficient substantially to reduce his mental responsibility.
Held: The correct approach was for the jury to ignore the effects of intoxication and to ask whether, leaving out the drink, the defendant’s other condition(s) of mental abnormality substantially impaired his responsibility for the killing. It was axiomatic that simple voluntary drunkenness was incapable of founding a plea of diminished responsibility.
Two questions arose. If the defendant had not taken drink, would he still have killed, and would he have been under diminished responsibility, and secondly, if not, what direction should be given when both are present. Gittens established that drink can further disinhibit a defendant already suffering abnormality of mind, the jury must decide whether the abnormality remained a nevertheless substantially impaired his responsibility, the defence of diminished responsibility does not necessarily fail if the jury decide that he would not have killed but for the drink, and Turnbull, Atkins and Egan should not be followed. A person who suffered diminished responsibility should not be convicted of murder but rather manslaughter, and whether or not he was at the time intoxicated. Guidance was then given on an appropriate jury direction.

Nichols of Birkenhead, Lloyd of Berwick, Hutton, Hobhouse of Woodborough LL
Times 28-Feb-2003, [2003] UKHL 10, Gazette 10-Apr-2003, [2003] 2 Cr App Rep 54, [2003] 1 All ER 897, [2003] 1 AC 1209, [2003] 2 WLR 613, [2003] All ER (D) 406
House of Lords, Bailii
Homicide Act 1957 2
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Gittens CACD 1984
Lord Lane set out the directions to be given to a jury on the defence of diminished responsibility: ‘Where a defendant suffers from an abnormality of mind arising from arrested or retarded development or inherent causes or induced by disease or . .
Cited – Regina v Turnbull (Launcelot) CACD 1977
. .
Appeal from – Dietschmann v Regina CACD 5-Oct-2001
The defendant was convicted of murder. He claimed diminished responsibility arising from a disorder, being either according to one psychiatrist, arising from alcohol dependence syndrome, or according to another, a depressed grief reaction. The . .
Disapproved – Regina v Atkinson 1-Mar-1985
Jury Directions in diminished responsibility case. . .
Disapproved – Regina v Egan CACD 1992
The court considered the appropriate directions to a jury in diminished responsibility defence to murder charge.
Watkins LJ said: ‘In R v Lloyd . . directions as to the word ‘substantial’, to the effect that (1) the jury should approach the . .

Cited by:
Cited – Hendy, Regina v CACD 12-Apr-2006
The applicant was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1992 for a brutal murder. He had pleaded diminished responsibility. There were now no papers from the trial. Medical evidence now suggested that at the time of the trial he would have suffered a . .
Cited – Regina v Khan CACD 27-Jul-2009
On his trial for murder the defendant produced unchallenged expert evidence that at the time of the offence, his mental responsibility for the killing was substantially impaired by his mental illness. He said that in these circumstances the charge . .
Cited – Wood, Regina v (No 1) CACD 20-Jun-2008
The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder, saying that he suffered from alcohol dependency syndrome, and that this amounted to a diminished responsibility.
Held: The appeal succeeded and and a conviction for manslaughter was . .
Cited – Stewart, Regina v CACD 26-Mar-2009
The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder, saying that the judge should have directed the jury as to the impact of alcohol dependency syndrome on his plea of diminished responsibility where there had been no discernible brain damage. . .
Cited – Dowds v Regina CACzD 22-Feb-2012
The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder, saying that he should have been allowed to rely on a plea of diminished responsibility given the changes to section 2 of the 1957 Act introduced in 2009. He said that his alcoholism should . .
Cited – Golds, Regina v SC 30-Nov-2016
The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder, saying that he should have been only convicted of manslaughter, applying the new test for diminished responsibility as provided under the 1957 Act as amended, and particularly whether the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.179612

If a person, being attacked, should from an apprehension of immediate violence, an apprehension which must be well grounded and justified by the circumstances, throw himself for escape into a river, and be drowned, the person attacking him is guilty of murder.

Erskine J
[1842] EngR 395 (A), (1842) Car and M 284
Commonlii
England and Wales

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.307350

Reuirement fo Mens Rea is not Universal

The Licensing Act, 1872, s. 13, makes it an offence for any licensed person to sell any intoxicating liquor to any drunken person. A publican sold intoxicating liquor to a drunken person who had given no indication of intoxication, and without being aware that the person so served was drunk.
Held: that the prohibition was absolute, and that knowledge of the condition of the person served with liquor was not necessary to constitute the offence.

[1884] UKLawRpKQB 101, (1883-1884) 13 QBD 207
Commonlii
Licensing Act 1872 13
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Hobbs v Winchester Corporation CA 18-Jun-1910
Meat had been seized under section 116 of the 1875 Act as unfit for human consumption. Although the butcher was acquitted of any offence under section 117 of that Act, on the grounds that he was unaware that it was unfit for consumption, it was . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.655023

In 1979 the defendant had been convicted on his plea, of six murders and subsequently of robbery with 25 similar offences taken into consideration. Now he sought ;eave to appeal bringing evidene of a personality disorder such that nothing he said, including the confessions and pleas he had made to the murders and other offences, could be relied on as truthful, unless corroborated. Co-accused, convicted on the same evidence had in the interim been successful on appeal.
Held: It is clear from what the experts agreed before the hearing that the applicant had in 1979 and thereafter a narcissistic personality disorder and anti-social personality disorder and his score on the psychopathy checklist met a diagnosis of psychopathy. He lied. The appeal was refused. There had been several years delay after he had again confirmed his guilt to the Criminal Cass Review Commission well after the trial. He was persuadable but no more than others, and there had been no suggestion of undue pressure by the investigating officers.

John Thomas, Baron Thomas of Cwmgiedd LCJ, Mitting J, Sir Roderick Evans
[2014] EWCA Crim 1884
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
See Also – Pinfold, Mackenney v Regina CACD 15-Dec-2003
The appellants challenged their convictions for murder. The convictions had been based substantially upon the evidence of a co-accused who had admitted his part. They now challenged the admission by way of support of the evidence of the co-defendant . .
Cited – Regina v Lee (Bruce) CACD 1984
The court considered an appeal after a plea of guilty to a number of offences of arson and manslaughter, entered on the basis of a mistake of law. The appellant’s counsel had had concerns about this client’s ability to properly decide whether to . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.537210

No Crime Unless Clearly Forbidden by Law

To burn a dead body, instead of burying it, is not a misdemeanor, unless it is so done as to amount to a public nuisance.
If an inquest ought to be held upon a dead body, it is a misdemeanor so to dispose of the body so as to prevent the coroner from holding the inquest.
The Court was asked, whether it is a misdemeanor at common law to burn a dead body instead of burying it.
Held: The jury was directed to acquit the defendant. Stephen J said: ”the great leading rule of criminal law is that nothing is a crime unless it is plainly forbidden by law.’ . . and ‘After full consideration, I am of opinion that a person who burns instead of burying a dead body does not commit a criminal act, unless lie does it in such a manner as to amount to a public nuisance at common law. My reason for this opinion is that upon the fullest examination of the authorities, I have, as the preceding review of them shews, been unable to discover any authority for the proposition that it is a misdemeanor to burn a dead body, and in the absence of such authority I feel that I have no right to declare it to be one . .
It is not my place to offer any opinion on the comparative merits of burning and burying corpses, but before I could hold that it must be a misdemeanor to burn a dead body, I must be satisfied not only that some people, or even that many people, object to the practice, but that it is, on plain, undeniable grounds, highly mischievous or grossly scandalous. Even then I should pause long before I held it to be a misdemeanor, for many acts involving the grossest indecency and grave public mischief – incest, for instance, and, where there is no conspiracy, seduction or adultery – are not misdemeanors, but I cannot take even the first step.’

Stephen J
[1884] UKLawRpKQB 17, (1883-1884) 12 QBD 247
Commonlii
England and Wales

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.655021

Mr Gul appealed against a dismissal of his appeal against his conviction for dissemination of terrorist publications contrary to section 2 of the 2006 Act. The Court was now asked as to the meaning of ‘terrorism’ in section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Held: The appeal failed. The word ‘terrorism’ on the 2000 Act had been given a wide meaning and included acts by insurgents against the armed forces of a state anywhere in the world in the context of a non-international armed conflict. The Act defined three elements to make up the act of terrorism: 1) the use or threat of action, within or outside the United Kingdom, consisting of serious violence to individuals, serious damage to property or serious risk to public safety or health, which (2) was designed to influence the United Kingdom Government or any other government or inter-governmental organisation, or intimidate the public, and (3) was made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.
There is no internationally accepted norm as to what constitutes terrorism, and none to displace the wide meaning given to it by parliament.

Lord Neuberger, President, Lady Hale, Deputy President , Lord Hope, Lord Mance, Lord Judge, Lord Kerr, Lord Reed
[2013] 3 WLR 1207, [2013] UKSC 64, [2014] 1 All ER 463, [2013] WLR(D) 402, [2014] Crim LR 315, [2014] 1 Cr App R 14, UKSC 2012/0124
Bailii, WLRD, Bailii Summary, SC Summary, SC
Terrorism Act 2000 1 117, Terrorism Act 2006 2
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Gul (M), Regina v CACD 22-Feb-2012
The defendant appealed against his conviction under the 2006 Act for disseminating terrorist publications. He had uploaded to the internet videos showing attacks ofn coalition forces on soldiers of the coalition. He said that his were not acts . .
Cited – Regina v F CACD 16-Feb-2007
The defendant was charged with offences for having been in possession of a document or record containing information of a kind ‘likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’. It was thought he was associated with a . .
Cited – Al-Sirri v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 21-Nov-2012
The appellants had been refused refugee status on the ground that they were suspected of having been guilty of terrorist acts. They said that the definition of terrorism applied within the UK was wider than that in the Convention which contained the . .

Cited by:
Cited – Dart and Others v Regina CACD 31-Oct-2014
The defendants had been convicted on guilty pleas of offences under the 2006 Act. Dart had been sentenced to a six year term and a five year extended sentence. Other received shorter and longer sentences as appropriate. They now applied for leave to . .
Cited – Belhaj and Another v Straw and Others SC 17-Jan-2017
The claimant alleged complicity by the defendant, (now former) Foreign Secretary, in his mistreatment by the US while held in Libya. He also alleged involvement in his unlawful abduction and removal to Libya, from which had had fled for political . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.516925

The appellant, a schoolgirl and her friend were involved in an incident with police officers which rapidly escalated. She said that only she had been involved, but that it was wrong when others quite outside her control became involved on seeing the officers’ behaviour, to charge her with violent disorder.
Held: The judge had been correct to reject a ‘no case’ submission. The section did not require any common purpose. Each of those involved might have a different or no purpose. The section was concerned with the effect of violence involving several persons on others. That was not affected by the intention of those involved. The phrase ‘present together’ is intended to denote no more than being present in the same place.
Moore-Bick LJ said: ‘At the heart of each of these three statutory public order offences lies the use or threat of unlawful violence of a kind that would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his personal safety. In other words, the mischief to which these sections of the Act are directed is public disorder, that is, conduct of a violent or threatening kind that would cause ordinary members of the public going about their lawful business to fear for their safety if they happened to come upon it. The offences of riot, violent disorder and affray are carefully graduated, both by reference to the number of persons who must be present in order for the offence to be committed and by reference to the purposes for which violence is used or threatened. Thus, the offence of riot can be committed only when twelve or more persons who are present together use or threaten unlawful violence for a common purpose, whereas the offence of violent disorder can be committed when three persons are present together and affray by one person acting alone.
It is in this context that the terms of section 2 of the Act fall to be interpreted. The absence, in contrast to section 1, of any requirement that there be a common purpose among those using or threatening the use of violence, makes it clear that the offence which it creates is not confined to situations in which the individual members of the crowd are acting together to achieve a common aim, or even with a common motive. Thus, in paragraph 32.1.4.2 of the current (12th) edition of Smith and Hogan, Criminal Law one finds the following comment:
‘There need be no common purpose. Each of the three or more persons may have a different purpose or no purpose.’
In our view that correctly reflects the natural meaning of the section.’

Moore-Bick LJ, Silber J, Kenneth Parker J
[2010] EWCA Crim 404
Bailii
Public Order Act 1986 2
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Brutus v Cozens HL 19-Jul-1972
The House was asked whether the conduct of the defendant at a tennis match at Wimbledon amounted to using ‘insulting words or behaviour’ whereby a breach of the peace was likely to be occasioned contrary to section 5. He went onto court 2, blew a . .

Cited by:
Cited – Gnango, Regina v CACD 26-Jul-2010
The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder. He had engaged in a street battle using guns. A bullet from an opponent killed an innocent passer by. The court was asked whether the principles of joint venture and transferred malice could . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.402484

When the court looked at the issue of foreseeability of murder in an allegation of joint enterprise, there was no requirement to show intent by the secondary party. The forseeability of the risk of the principal committing the offence from the point of view of the secondary party is sufficient. The question certified was ‘Is it sufficient to found a conviction for murder for a secondary party to a killing to have realised that the primary party might kill with intent to do so or must the secondary party have held such intention himself?’
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
A secondary party to a criminal enterprise may be criminally liable for a greater criminal offence committed by the primary offender of a type which the former foresaw but did not necessarily intend. It is sufficient to found a conviction for murder for a secondary party to have realised that in the course of the joint enterprise the primary party might kill with intent to do so or with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Lord Steyn said: ‘Experience has shown that joint criminal Enterprises only too often escalate into commission of greater offences. In order to deal with this important social problem, the accessory principle is needed and cannot be bolished or relaxed.’

Lord Goff of Chieveley, Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle Lord Mustil, Lord Steyn, Lord Hutton
Times 31-Oct-1997, [1997] UKHL 45, [1997] 4 All ER 545, [1999] AC 1, [1997] 3 WLR 959, [1998] Crim LR 48, [1998] 1 Cr App Rep 261, [1997] UKHL 57
House of Lords, Bailii, Bailii
Accessories and Abettors Act 1861 8
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Anderson; Regina v Morris CACD 1966
The court considered criminal liability under the joint enterprise rule where the principle took the action beyond what had been anticipated. Parker CJ said: ‘It seems to this court that to say that adventurers are guilty of manslaughter when one of . .
Cited – Chan Wing-Siu v The Queen PC 21-Jun-1984
The appellant and co-accused were charged with murder. They said they had gone to meet the deceased to collect a debt, but had been attacked with a knife by the deceased. Two of the three had knives and knew of the other knife.
Held: All were . .
Cited – Hui Chi-ming v The Queen PC 5-Aug-1991
(Hong Kong) The defendant was charged with aiding and abetting a murder. A, carrying a length of water pipe and accompanied by the defendant and four other youths, seized a man and A hit him with the pipe, causing injuries from which he died. No . .
Appeal from – Regina v Powell, Regina v Daniel CACD 2-Jun-1995
A secondary party to a murder need only know of first party’s violent intentions to be guilty. . .

Cited by:
Cited – Regina v KJ Martin CACD 20-Feb-2003
The defendant had been found unfit to plead on a charge of murder. Charges against the co-defendants were later reduced to inflicting grievous bodily harm, but when the defendant came to be dealt with, it was on the basis that the charge remained . .
Cited – Regina v Woollin HL 2-Apr-1998
The defendant appealed against his conviction for the murder of his child. He had thrown the child to the floor, hitting the head. He said that he had not intended to kill the child.
Held: On a murder charge, where the short direction on . .
Cited – Balkissoon Roodal v The State PC 20-Nov-2003
(Trinidad and Tobago) The appellant challenged the automatic death sentence imposed upon him for murder.
Held: There were conflicting constitutional provisions. Following Fisher, in the context of issues of capital sentences a wider view was . .
Cited – Regina v Van Hoogstraten CACD 12-Dec-2003
The prosecution appealed against the refusal of the crown court to remit the case for retrial.
Held: The court had no jurisdiction to entertain an appeal against this ruling because it was not within the ambit of section 29(2) of the 1996 Act. . .
Cited – Regina v Derek William Bentley (Deceased) CACD 30-Jul-1998
The defendant had been convicted of murder in 1952, and hung. A court hearing an appeal after many years must apply laws from different eras to different aspects. The law of the offence (of murder) to be applied was that at the time of the offence. . .
Cited – Watson v Regina PC 7-Jul-2004
(Jamaica) The defendant was convicted of two murders from the same incident. The Act provided for the death penalty if he was convicted of a second murder. He appealed the death sentence in the circumstances, and said also that it was . .
Cited – Mariotti v Government of Italy and others Admn 2-Dec-2005
The extraditee had been convicted in his absence in Italy having fled to avoid the trial. He complained that the trial process had been unfair and the evidence against him weak.
Held: The court’s duty was not to investigate the evidential . .
Cited – Taylor v The Queen PC 13-Mar-2006
(Jamaica) The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder. He complained that admissions against each other by the co-defendants had been entered in evidence despite his allegations of police mistreatment. The statement was the only . .
Cited – Webster v Regina CACD 3-Mar-2006
The appellant challenged his conviction for aiding an abetting the causing of death by dangerous driving as a passenger. The driver had been drunk.
Held: The mere intoxication of the driver was not of itself and alone sufficient to establish . .
Cited – Regina v Rahman; Regina v Akram; Regina v Amin; Regina v Ali CACD 23-Feb-2007
The defendants appealed their convictions for murder. There had been a joint violent attack, but each said they did not know that the principle assailant carried and would use a knife, and said the judge’s directions on joint enterprise were . .
Cited – Rahman and Others, Regina v HL 2-Jul-2008
The defendants appealed against their convictions for murder. None had themselves inflicted any violence, but were convicted as part of a joint enterprise. They said they had not known that the principal carried a knife. They said that the evidence . .
Cited – Mitchell and Another, Regina v CACD 4-Nov-2008
The appellant challenged their convictions as ancillary parties to a murder, particularly as to the joint enterprise direction. There had been a scuffle outside a pub. The appellant went away with others to a nearby house, and returned with them . .
Cited – Martin v Regina CACD 6-Jul-2010
The defendant had been a passenger on a car driven by a learner driver. The car crashed killing the driver and seriously injuring another. He appealed against his conviction for aiding and abetting dangerous driving.
Held: The appeal . .
Cited – Regina v Bryce CACD 18-May-2004
The defendant said that his involvement in the murder of which he had been convicted had been secondary only. He was alleged to have transported the killer and the gun which he used to commit the murder to a caravan near the victim’s home so that . .
Cited – Equality and Human Rights Commission v Prime Minister and Others Admn 3-Oct-2011
The defendant had published a set of guidelines for intelligence officers called upon to detain and interrogate suspects. The defendant said that the guidelines could only be tested against individual real life cases, and that the court should not . .
Cited – Regina v Uddin CACD 19-Mar-1998
A co-accused in a murder by a gang, where the existence of the murder weapon which was used, was outside the expectation of the defendant, need not himself be guilty, because of the different circumstances which applied in his case. . .
Cited – Gnango, Regina v CACD 26-Jul-2010
The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder. He had engaged in a street battle using guns. A bullet from an opponent killed an innocent passer by. The court was asked whether the principles of joint venture and transferred malice could . .
Cited – Gnango, Regina v SC 14-Dec-2011
The prosecutor appealed against a successful appeal by the defendant against his conviction for murder. He and an opponent had engaged in a street battle using guns. His opponent had shot an innocent passer by. The court was now asked as to whether . .
Cited – Jogee and Ruddock (Jamaica) v The Queen SC 18-Feb-2016
Joint Enterprise Murder
The two defendants appealed against their convictions (one in Jamaica) for murder, under the law of joint enterprise. Each had been an accessory when their accomplice killed a victim with a knife. The judge in Jogee had directed the jury that he . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.158920

Honest and Reasonable mistake – No Bigamy

The defendant appealed against her conviction for bigamy, saying that she had acted in a mistaken belief.
Held: A man commits bigamy if he goes through a marriage ceremony while his wife is alive, even though he honestly and reasonably believes she is dead. ‘At common law an honest and reasonable belief in the existence of circumstances, which, if true, would make the act for which a prisoner is indicted an innocent act has always been held to be a good defence. This doctrine is embodied in the somewhat uncouth maxim ‘actus non facit reum, nisi mens sit rea’. Honest and reasonable mistake stands on the same footing as absence of the reasoning faculty, as in infancy, or perversion of that faculty, as in lunacy. . So far as I am aware it has never been suggested that these exceptions do not equally apply in the case of statutory offences unless they are excluded expressly or by necessary implication.’
Stephen J said: ‘The mental element of most crimes is marked by one of the words ‘maliciously’, ‘fraudulently’, ‘negligently’, or ‘knowingly’, but it is the general – I might, I think, say, the invariable – practice of the legislature to leave unexpressed some of the mental elements of crime. In all cases whatever, competent age, sanity, and some degree of freedom from some kinds of coercion are assumed to be essential to criminality, but I do not believe they are ever introduced into any statute by which any particular crime is defined.’ and
”Mens rea’ means in the case of rape, an intention to have forcible connection with a woman without her consent.’ As to the element of mens rea he said: Though this phrase is in common use, I think it most unfortunate, and not only likely to mislead, but actually misleading, on the following grounds. It naturally suggests that, apart from all particular definitions’ of crimes, such a thing exists as a ‘mens rea’, or ‘guilty mind’, which is always expressly or by implication involved in every definition. This is obviously not the case, for the mental elements of different crimes differ widely. ‘Mens rea’ means in the case of murder, malice aforethought; in the case of theft, an intention to steal; in the case of rape, an intention to have forcible connection with a woman without her consent; and in the case of receiving stolen goods, knowledge that the goods were stolen. In some cases it denotes mere inattention. For instance, in the case of manslaughter by negligence it may mean forgetting to notice a signal. It appears confusing to call so many dissimilar states of mind by one name.’
Stephen J. concluded: ‘The principle involved appears to me, when fully considered, to amount to no more than this. The full definition of every crime contains expressly or by implication a proposition as to a state of mind. Therefore, if the mental element of any conduct alleged to be a crime is proved to have been absent in any given case, the crime so defined is not committed; or, again, if a crime is fully defined, nothing amounts to that crime which does not satisfy that definition.’

Cave J, Stephen J
(1889) 23 QBD 168, [1889] UKLawRpKQB 85
Commonlii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Fowler v Padget 8-Feb-1798
Mens Rea essential to crime
In order to constitute an act of bankruptcy by a trader in departing from his dwelling-house, it is not alone sufficient that a creditor should be thereby delayed, but the departure must also have been with that intent. The word ‘or’ in the statute . .
See Also – Regina v Tolson 1864
(Surrey Summer Assizes) On an indictment for bigamy, a photographic likeness of the first husband allowed to be shown the witnesses present at the first marriage, in older to prove his identity with the person mentioned in the marriage certificate . .

Cited by:
Cited – B (A Minor) v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 23-Feb-2000
Prosecution to prove absence of genuine belief
To convict a defendant under the 1960 Act, the prosecution had the burden of proving the absence of a genuine belief in the defendant’s mind that the victim was 14 or over. The Act itself said nothing about any mental element, so the assumption must . .
Cited – Regina v K HL 25-Jul-2001
In a prosecution for an offence of indecent assault on a girl under 16 under the section, it was necessary for the prosecution to prove the absence of a positive belief in the defendant’s mind that the victim was 16 or over. The legislation history . .
Cited – Regina v Morgan HL 30-Apr-1975
The defendants appealed against their convictions for rape, denying mens rea and asserting a belief (even if mistaken) that the victim had consented.
Held: For a defence of mistake to succeed, the mistake must have been honestly made and need . .
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Majewski HL 1976
The defendant took a cocktail of drink and drugs and, whilst intoxicated, assaulted pub landlord. He said that he did not know what he was doing, and had no mens rea, that self-induced intoxication could be a defence to a charge of assault, and that . .
Cited – Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Storkwain HL 19-Jun-1986
The defendant pharmacist had filled a prescription, but unknown to him the prescription was forged.
Held: The offence of sale of medicine contrary to the Act was one of strict liability, and was made out.
Lord Goff of Chieveley (with whom . .
Cited – Taylor, Regina v SC 3-Feb-2016
No Liability Extension on Taking Without Consent
Appeal by leave of the Court of Appeal on a point of law arising in the course of the trial of the appellant for aggravated vehicle taking, contrary to section 12A of the Theft Act 1968. The defendant had taken a vehicle without the owner’s consent, . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.195968