For some dangerous acts it seems obvious that death will result but in R v Mitchell this was not the case. Mitchell, the defendant, assaulted a man who then fell on to an elderly woman causing her death. It is reasonable to say that the death of the woman was not foreseeable however unfortunately for manslaughter it is sufficient that the act may foreseeably cause some harm. Mitchell was therefore given life imprisonment for an act that was in most people’s opinion minor. It is however up to the court to decide to interpret the circumstances of the death.
Also two apparently similar acts can be found to be very different due to the unclearness of the law two very similar acts can be convicted of two different offences. In R V Dawson the circumstances of the burglary were not considered by the court to be dangerous whereas in R V Watson the court decided the circumstances were. So maybe the law does not promote consistency from this point of view.
The Law commission also said that it was not fair for someone to be held responsible for a result they neither intended nor foresaw and be imprisoned for life. It has been suggested by the Law Commission that the person should be guilty of manslaughter if they intend some injury to the victim.
Gross negligence manslaughter is an extremely complex area that brings civil concepts into criminal law, as the courts are reluctant to establish firm test for applying the principles. The House of Lords laid down these principles in R V Adomako in 1994. In this case the defendant failed to supply the right amount of oxygen when treating a person causing their death. It was held that the defendant will be liable for the death of the victim if there was a risk of death, owes a duty of care, breaches that duty of care and there was gross negligence regarding the breach. In this case Lord Mackay said that there must also be a risk of death but due to case law this it is not clear whether this still is a necessity. In some cases the requirement is more extreme like in R V Singh where the judge decided that there must be a serious risk of death; but in some cases like R V Lidar it was said that only a risk of serious harm was necessary. This shows that the way that the principles are applied is not always consistent which may cause injustice sometimes. However it has been often said that as the death of a person is a serious matter, the requirement must be ‘risk of death’. The duty of care element is not as hard to determine. However the judge determines it and some may find it unfair that this is the case in a criminal law trial. In some cases though there have been some surprising outcomes in cases because the jury have made some unsatisfactory decisions. For example in R V Wood and Hodgson where the defendants where acquitted when a ten year old died after consuming their drugs and they failed to call an ambulance for two hours.
Gross negligence was not defined in R V Adomako and deciding what amounts to gross negligence has proven very difficult. Some say that it should not be described as a form of Mens Rea at the decision as to whether it was gross negligence is objective and as the academic Glanville Williams suggests only a subjective form of Mens Rea would be sufficient for such a serious offence.
It is recognised that the law for manslaughter is not clear or thorough enough. If there were different categories of manslaughter with different sentences and more firm tests were established for deciding whether a person is liable or not maybe there would be less injustice, inconsistency and confusion in the courts.
