Intention can be oblique or direct. Direct intent is where the defendant actually desires the consequences of their actions. Oblique intention gives the concept of intent a wider meaning; the consequence wasn’t the defendant’s aim but was ‘virtually certain’ to occur as a result of their actions. The issue of intent has been problematic and there has been a long list of cases on this as a consequence. The law on oblique intent stared in section 8 of the Criminal Justice Act 1867 which states that a court of jury ‘shall not be bound by law to infer that a defendant intended or foresaw result of his or her actions by reason only of its being a natural and probable consequence of those actions’. It also requires the jury to refer to ‘all the evidence, drawing such inferences from the evidence as appear proper in the circumstances’. This wording makes the test subjective, whether the defendant saw it as probable and this has been the subject of several cases over the last 20 years.
The Moloney case (1985) is one of the leading cases on this subject. This case brought the 2 stage test which asked whether the death or serious injury was a natural consequence of the defendants act and whether the defendant foresaw the consequence as being the natural consequence of his or her act. The problem with these tests is that that they assume that the consequence is virtually certain if it is a natural consequence. This is not the case, for example death from a lightning strike is a natural consequence of a storm, but not very likely.
This was found to be problematic in the case of Hancock and Shankland (1986) due to lack of reference to probability. It was held that ‘natural consequence’ was misleading and that even awareness of the consequences as ‘virtually certain’ was only evidence and not proof of intent. This case found that the greater the probability of a consequence the more likely it is that the consequence was foreseen and that if the consequence was foreseen the greater the probability that the consequence was also intended.
The law on oblique intent was clarified by the leading case Woolin (1998) which confirmed the direction given in Nedrick (1986). In this case the defendant’s conviction was quashed on appeal because the jury hadn’t been properly directed on intent. The court provided a standard direction for the jury as to intent in a murder trial in all cases of oblique intent. This direction was confirmed and the Jury must now consider to questions which are; was death or serious bodily harm a virtual certainty? Did the defendant appreciate that such was the case? If the answer to both of these questions is ‘yes’ then the jury may find intent.
Problems could occur with the decision in Woolin as Lord Steyne seemed to regard foresight of consequences as the same as intention and not merely evidence of it as was stated in Moloney. This contradiction adds a great deal of confusion on this point.
In conclusion when looking at the law of intent as a part of mens rea it is important to distinguish between oblique intent and direct intent. Whilst direct intent is fairly straight forward, however this is not the case in oblique intent. When looking at oblique intent, as was made clear in Woolin, the defendant’s knowledge is an important factor.