The appellant poured paraffin through the front door of a house and set it alight. In the fire a child died.
Held: Lord Lane CJ considered whether a simple direction to the jury on intent to either kill or to do serious bodily harm was adequate and said: ‘Where the charge is murder and in the rare cases where the simple direction is not enough, the jury should be directed that they are not entitled to infer the necessary intention, unless they feel sure that death or serious bodily harm was a virtual certainty (barring some unforeseen intervention) as a result of the defendant’s actions and that the defendant appreciated that such was the case.’
Lord Lane CJ
[1986] 1 WLR 1025, (1986) 8 Cr App R(S), [1986] EWCA Crim 2
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Matthews; Regina v Alleyne CACD 7-Feb-2003
The defendants appealed their convictions for murder, complaining that the judge had failed properly to direct the jury as to the required likelhood of death which might result from the act complained of, and turned a rule of evidence into a rule of . .
Confirmed – 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 – Regina v Woollin CACD 12-Aug-1996
The defendant threw his child in anger onto a hard surface. He argued that he did not intend the consequences, the death of the child.
Held: A direction from the judge as to the making of an inference of intent from the consequences of an act, . .
Cited – Jones, Regina v CACD 30-Nov-2005
The court considered appeals against tarriffs set for defendants convicted of murder in the light of the schedules to the 2003 Act.
Held: ‘The guidance given by Schedule 21 is provided to assist the judge to determine the appropriate sentence. . .
These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 22 June 2021; Ref: scu.179313