In order for an individual to be found guilty of a crime, the prosecution, in the majority of cases, have to prove two elements, the 'actus reus' and the 'mens rea'.

YVETTE REDMOND L.O.3

THE CONCEPT OF CRIMINAL LIABILITY

In order for an individual to be found guilty of a crime, the prosecution, in the majority of cases, have to prove two elements, the ‘actus reus’ and the ‘mens rea’.

‘Actus reus’ means the guilty act; ‘mens rea’ means the guilty mind or intention. There are some crimes where the actus reus alone is enough to convict someone without proving the element of intention. These are called crimes of strict liability. An example of a strict liability crime can be seen in Winzar v. Chief Constable for Kent (1983), where police were called to a drunken man in a casualty department. They took the man to their car outside where he was arrested for being drunk on a public highway. The court held that the offence did not require any mens rea and the defendant was found guilty. He had been drunk on a highway and the act of being drunk on a highway (the actus reus) was enough to convict.

It is possible for a person to have the mens rea for a crime but not do the actus reus. For example if an individual goes into a house with a knife intending to kill and stabs a person that is in bed but it was later discovered that the person had already died from a heart attack, even though the individual did not kill the person, the mens rea for murder was there; he intended to kill. Even though the actus reus was not there, (he didn’t kill the person) he is still guilty of attempted murder.

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Murder and manslaughter

The most serious crime is murder. The only difference between murder and manslaughter is the intention of the defendant.

Murder is defined in section one of the Homicide Act (1957):

‘Where a person of sound mind unlawfully kills any reasonable creature in being under the Queens peace with malice or aforethought, either express or implied’.

This is the ‘common law definition’. The actus reus of murder is the ‘unlawful killing of a person’ and the mens rea is the ‘malice or aforethought’.

The elements of the actus reus in both murder and manslaughter are:

The killing must be unlawful without legal justification or excuse (i.e.: self defence).
Causation must be established (that the defendants act caused the death)
The victim must be a human being (must have been born, a foetus is not classed as a human being.
The victim must die. It used to be that a victim must die within a year and a day for a defendant to be charged with murder but this was abolished when Parliament passed the Year and a day rule Act (1996).
Under the Queens peace. The killing of an enemy during war does not constitute an actus reus for murder.

Malice aforethought means there was intent to murder. Express malice is the intention to kill. Implied malice is the intention to cause grievous bodily harm.

In R. v Vickers, (1957) it was decided that the intention to cause grievous bodily harm was enough to make the defendant guilty of murder if the victim dies. This was decision was later confirmed by the House of Lords in R v Cunningham (1981) where a victim died of injuries.