The Blip Blop Blog (Team Entity)

In R v Mitchell (1983) the accused jumped a queue at a post office and was confronted by an elderly man. The accused hit the elderly man and he fell into the crowd and collided with an elderly lady. As a result, the elderly lady fell down and broke her leg. She subsequently died from the injuries that she’d sustained. The accused was charged and convicted for constructive manslaughter or unlawful manslaughter. The defense appealed but the conviction was upheld. It was sufficient that an unlawful act had been committed or perpetrated. The act need not be directed at the victim. In R v Goodfellow (1986) the accused who’d been repeatedly harassed by a couple of men set fire to his own home and his wife, son and his son’s girlfriend, who were in the house at the time, died in the fire. The accused was tried and convicted for unlawful act manslaughter. The accused appealed. The conviction was upheld. Reaffirming the decision in R v Mitchell (1983) and decisions in similar ca

In order to establish constructive manslaughter, it suffices that the act is unlawful or prohibited by law and the act need not be necessarily directed at the victim, in fact the unlawful act need not even be directed at a person for example when the accused throws stones through a shop window with intent to cause criminal damage. S1. 1 of The Criminal Damage Act 1971 defines criminal damage. The section reads as follows: - (1) A person who without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property belonging to another intending to destroy or damage any such property or being reckless as to whether any such property would be destroyed or damaged shall be guilty of an offence. (2) A person who without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property, whether belonging to himself or another— (a) intending to destroy or damage any property or being reckless as to whether any property would be destroyed or damaged; and (b) intending by the destruction or damage to endanger

In order to establish constructive manslaughter the act must be an overt unlawful act. An omission, which is a failure to act when there is normally a duty to act, imposed by either common law or statute for example in the parent child relationship, will not suffice. In R v Lowe (1973), the parent, Mr. Lowe, a person of low intelligence did not call a doctor to attend to his sick child or bring the child’s illness to the attention of a doctor and the child subsequently died as a result. Mr. Lowe was arrested and charged under s.1 (1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, which states:- If any person who has attained the age of sixteen years and (has responsibility for) any child or young person under that age, willfully assaults, ill-treats, neglects, abandons, or exposes him, or causes or procures him to be assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, abandoned, or exposed, in a manner likely to cause him unnecessary suffering or injury to health (including injury to or loss o

Constructive manslaughter cannot be raised if the act was not an unlawful act. In R v Lamb (1967) two boys got their hands on a revolver. The boys believed that the chamber was empty and started fiddling around with it when in fact there were two bullets in the chamber. One boy pointed the gun at the other and it went off killing the other boy. The boy that pulled the trigger was charged with unlawful act manslaughter or constructive manslaughter. It was held that there was no unlawful act as the boys clearly thought that the gun was empty. It is also worth asking the question if it is an offence to pick up an empty gun or a revolver? Pointing a gun at someone could constitute assault i.e. a threat that puts someone in fear of imminent harm but in the given situation neither of the boys were even remotely afraid. In R v Arobekieke (1988) the accused was chasing a victim and the latter ran into a train station and got on board a stationary train. The accused peered i

We will now examine the nature of the unlawful act and we will also try to determine or establish if the severity of the offence or the extent of the unlawfulness is to be taken into consideration when deciding whether the offence can be classified as constructive manslaughter. In R v Fenton (1830) the accused threw stones down a mine and his actions caused the scaffolding to collapse and resulted in the death of some miners working in the mine. It was held that the unlawful act in itself was sufficient to constitute constructive manslaughter, despite the fact that an action was brought in tort (trespass) (civil law) i.e. the accused did not have either implied or express permission to enter the premises, and not in criminal law. The nature or the type of “unlawful act” that could give rise to constructive manslaughter was clarified in the case of R v Franklin (1883). In R v Franklin (1883) the accused threw a box from a pier and the box hit a swimmer who drowned as a

Constructive manslaughter or unlawful act manslaughter is a form of involuntary manslaughter that occurs when the defendant or the accused kills the other without having the intention to kill or lacks the mens rea to kill i.e. the defendant does not intend to kill but regardless, death is the outcome of the defendant’s actions or the actions of the accused. It must be distinguished from voluntary manslaughter which occurs in the heat of the moment and involuntary manslaughter (reckless manslaughter). In order for a plea of constructive manslaughter to succeed, it is a lesser offence when compared to murder, the defendant or the accused must satisfy three criteria. They are as follows: - 1.      The accused must have a committed an unlawful act which is not always necessarily the same as a reckless act. For example, if the speed limit is 60 km per hour and the accused or the defendant was driving at 80 km per hour then the act is unlawful. However, if the driver was driving

It’s normally difficult to convict a doctor for involuntary manslaughter and in most instances all the doctor has to do is to established that he or she was acting in a manner that was reasonable or in a manner that is accepted by some recognized school of medicine. The law without doubt favors medical practitioners and that is because doctors need some degree of flexibility and they may not be able to perform their duties efficiently if they were constantly afraid of being sued and therefore to be successful in a case against a doctor the defense not only has to establish that the doctor’s actions were out of the norm but was off the mark by some degree. That exception however does not apply to nurses and those that administer anesthetics. In R v Bateman (1925) a doctor was charged with manslaughter for causing the death of a woman in his care who died during childbirth. It was held that in order for the doctor to be convicted of manslaughter the scope of negligence or the neg

If the accident or the mishap that deprived the victim of his or her life was caused by the victim then the accused would not be found to be guilty of manslaughter. Let’s say for example that a driver gives someone he or she knows a lift in his or her car and the passenger for some reason or other interferes with the steering wheel and that in turn causes an accident and the passenger who interfered with the steering wheel dies as a result of the accident. In such an instance the driver would not be found guilty of manslaughter. In R v Jones (1870) the accused was the driver of a horse drawn cart and while he was driving the passenger decided to tamper with the horses while the horses were pulling the cart and as a result the driver lost control of the cart and an accident ensued and the passenger died. The accused was charged with reckless manslaughter but was subsequently acquitted on the grounds that the accident was caused by the inappropriate act of the passenger and n

In R v Swindall and Osborne (1846) the accused was driving his cart down a street, racing with another driver, the winner being the driver of the cart that reached the intended destination first. While they were racing one of the carts ran over a pedestrian who was killed in the accident that followed. The accused was arrested and charged with reckless manslaughter. The accused was convicted. An accused however would not be convicted of manslaughter if he or she can prove or the defense can establish that even if the accused had not been careless or negligent, death would have been the end result anyway. In R v Dalloway (1847) the accused, the driver of a horse drawn cart was driving his cart down a road when a child suddenly ran out in front of the cart and was hit by it. The accused was not holding the reins at the time the cart was travelling down the street and as a result deprived himself of the means of preventing or stopping an accident. The accused was charged in co

Involuntary manslaughter occurs when death results from the overtly negligent or careless act of the accused i.e. the accused kills another without the intention to kill or lacks the mens rea for murder i.e. premeditation or intent and it normally occurs when death results from an act that is callous and reckless. In R v Walker (1824) the accused was driving his horse drawn cart down a street recklessly calling out to the pedestrians as he did so to get out of the way. The cart ran over a passerby, who died as a result and the accused was arrested and tried. Because the accused lacked the mens rea to kill, his act though careless and reckless was not done with the intent to kill and therefore lacked the prerequisite for murder. The accused was convicted of manslaughter instead. Similarly, in R v Martin (1827) where the accused had given a child a wrong drink or a drink that was not suitable for the child, as a result of which, the child died, the accused was convicted o