The present law relating to Involuntary Manslaughter serves neither the defendant nor the criminal justice system. Discuss (50 marks)

for unlawful (unl) act MSL D must commit an unl act which is dangerous and causes the victim’s (V)’s death. D must also intend to commit the unlawful act. An unl act is defined as a criminal offence. This is illustrated in the case of Franklin 1883) where D was acquitted after throwing a box into the sea which hit and killed a swimmer, as this was held to be a civil wrong which is not enough to create liability. This was also seen in Lamb (1967) where D shot his friend who didn’t think the gun would fire; this wasn’t assault as his friend feared no violence thus wasn’t an unl act. The unl act doesn’t have to be serious as seen in Larkin (1943) where the appellant waved a cut throat razor to scare another but instead scared V who fell onto it and died; D was convicted as this was deemed to be assault. The unl act also doesn’t have to be against a person; as seen in Newbury and Jones (1976) where two D’s threw a paving slab off a railway bridge which inadvertently killed a railway guard; they were convicted. Finally the unl act must be deemed dangerous using an objective test due to the surrounding circumstances. In Church (1965) this was held to be “all sober and reasonable people would inevitably recognise must subject the other person to, at least, the risk of some harm (…) albeit not serious harm.” This was confirmed in Ball (1989) where D fired what he thought was a blank cartridge at his neighbour as it was held a bystander watching D’s act would’ve thought it was dangerous and a reasonable sober man would’ve checked the cartridges. This act also doesn’t need to be aimed at v as illustrated in Mitchell (1983) where D pushed A over in the post office who fell and killed V; D was convicted. The act can also be at property as seen in Goodfellow (1986) where