The mens rea of burglary is the intention or recklessness to being a trespasser and intention to commit an ulterior offence. Eric fulfils the mens rea of burglary as he had the intention to go beyond the permission given to him, when he decided to go upstairs to the bedroom to destroy the presents. The ulterior offence which he has committed is criminal damage and GBH.
The two factors which must be proved in burglary are that the defendant must enter a building or part of a building and he must be a trespasser. To prove trespass, the defendant must know that he has not got permission to be on the premises or be reckless as to whether he is trespassing in the sense that he is aware of facts which meant he might be trespassing. Where the defendant is invited on to the premises, he is not trespassing (R v Collins), although he may be still treated as a trespasser if he goes beyond the permission given ( R v Jones and Smith). However given the situation that Eric had been invited to the engagement party, it could be argued that he is not trespassing. The facts of Eric’s and R v Jones and Smith could be interpreted similarly on the grounds of exceeding the permission given. The mens rea of trespass is the intention to trespass and being reckless as to whether trespassing or not. From the elements of the mens rea, Eric could argue he was reckless as to whether he was trespassing or not as he was invited to the house as a guest.
The second element of burglary is that a defendant must enter a building or part of a building. To understand what is a building, or part of a building, the facts of R v Collins and R v Ryans illustrates this. In Collins it was held that the defendant must have effective and substantial entry as a trespasser for him to be liable of burglary. A building literally means any building and includes houses, offices or shops etc. The phrase part of a building is used to cover situations where the defendant may have the right to be in one part of a building but is a trespasser if he goes into another part. A common example of this is in shops where the general public are allowed into the main body of the shop, but are not entitled to go into areas which are marked ‘private’ or ‘staff only’. In R v Walkington 1979, the defendant was found guilty of burglary when he went behind a three sided counter in a shop intending to steal from the till. The court held this are was clearly for staff only and the defendant realised this.
However a defence that could be available to Eric is of duress. Duress is where a person is forced by someone else to break the law under an immediate threat of serious bodily harm to himself or someone else. The two-stage test for duress is contained in , which was subsequently approved by the House of Lords in . The jury should consider two elements; whether or not the defendant was compelled to act as he did because, on the basis of the circumstances as he honestly believed them to be, he thought his life was in immediate danger. Secondly, would a sober person of reasonable firmness sharing the defendant’s characteristics and would he have responded in the same way to the threats. Finally the threat must be immediate. From looking at the elements of duress, Eric could be possibly successful with this defence, as he was in danger to himself which was immendiate as Dave threatened to “beat up” Eric unless he took the opportunity to smash the presents. Therefore he could argue the threat was immediate.