Novus actus interveniens
The defendant had shot a person during the course of an argument. The victim underwent surgery in hospital where a tracheotomy tube was inserted into his windpipe. Some weeks later, his condition deteriorated and he died two months after the incident. The victim’s windpipe was found on post mortem examination to have become obstructed because of narrowing near the site of the tracheotomy scar. Evidence was given in the proceedings that there had been a failure on the part of the treating doctors to have diagnosed and appropriately treated the victim’s deteriorating condition. The defendant was found guilty of murder and appealed.
Held: The court considered the doctrine of novus actus interveniens – whether or not there was the necessary causal relationship between the shooting of the victim by the defendant and the victim’s ultimate death so as to found a conviction for murder.
Beldam LJ said: ‘In the criminal law, and in particular in the law of homicide, whether the death of a deceased was the result of the accused’s criminal act is a question of fact for the jury, but it is a question of fact to be decided in accordance with legal principles explained to the jury by the judge.’
. . And: ‘Where the law requires proof of the relationship between an act and its consequences as an element of responsibility, a simple and sufficient explanation of the basis of such relationship has proved notoriously elusive.
In a case in which the jury have to consider whether negligence in the treatment of injuries inflicted by the accused was the cause of death we think it is sufficient for the judge to tell the jury that they must be satisfied that the Crown have proved that the acts of the accused caused the death of the deceased, adding that the accused’s acts need not be the sole cause or even the main cause of death, it being sufficient that his acts contributed significantly to that result. Even though negligence in the treatment of the victim was the immediate cause of his death, the jury should not regard it as excluding the responsibility of the accused unless the negligent treatment was so independent of his acts, and in itself so potent in causing death, that they regard the contribution made by his acts as insignificant.
It is not the function of the jury to evaluate competing causes or to choose which is dominant provided they are satisfied that the accused’s acts can fairly be said to have made a significant contribution to the victim’s death. We think the word ‘significant’ conveys the necessary substance of a contribution made to the death which is more than negligible. (
Beldam LJ
(1991) 93 Cr App R 251, [1991] 1 WLR 844, [1991] 3 All ER 670
England and Wales
Crime
Leading Case
Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.541407
