AS level Criminal Paper

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Criminal law part A

 

Actus Reas is described as the physical element. For a criminal case to win actus reas must be proved and also along with mens rea. An Actus reas can be committed in three different ways. Firstly, the omissions of a person meaning they have failed to do something that an existing duty required by you. There are two kinds of omissions common law and statutory. Statutory for example would be failure to supply a breathe sample when stopped on suspicion of drink driving violating the Road Traffic act 1988 section 2. However, common law duties can be split up into 5 parts.

  1. A duty will arise from a relationship towards people who are dependent on others. For example a parent towards a child owes responsibility for foreseeable harm towards the vulnerability of a child. Such as in R v Gibbons and Proctor.
  2. Were by a duty that has voluntarily been undertaken a duty will still exist, as the same standard will be expected of you. Such as in R v Stone and Daganson.
  3. A contractual duty will arise. For example R v Pittwood
  4. A professional duty will arise such as a doctor, police officers. As shown in R v Dytham.
  5. Also, a duty will arise were failure to stop a situation in getting worse in which you have started. Such as in R v Santana Barmudes were by failure to state there were needles in his pocket causing a police officer to get pricked by one. Also contrasted by miller were by a fire was started and the defendant failed to stop the fire.

Secondly, a positive act can be performed in which is involuntary act that you have no control over. In case Hill v Baxter dicta comments gave guidance to this. Were by a persons mind has not been working correctly at the time of the event. Such as automatism i.e. sleep walking. Also insanity were by using the Menortan rules can give guidance to help distinguish circumstances. Lastly a state of fairs can consist were by you are in the wrong place at the wrong time however unjust these may seem. The law believe that in limited cases were a statue of affairs exists that is enough to convict them of a wrong doing as the actus reas has been established even though these affairs may not of come about through their own choice. This was held in case R v Larsohneur were by she was an alien on England soil contrary to the alien act. However this was involuntary the court held she was guilty.

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 Causation can be broken up into two different parts factual causation and legal causation. Firstly factual causation uses the ‘But for’ test were by the question arises but for the defendants actions would the damage still of occurred? This can be shown in case R v White as the defendant was let of murder, as his actions did not cause the death a heart attack was the cause. However he was still guilty of attempt as he had the Mens rea as the actions in which Mr. White took were more than merely perpouertry. However, in case R v ...

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