Elements of a Crime
Actus Reus
The Actus Reus of a crime is the physical element, or act. The actions of the crime to must be voluntary in that they are controlled by the defendant.
Hill and Baxter - The driver of a car would not be driving voluntarily. These included being hit on the head with a stone and being stung by a swarm of bees. Such actions would not amount to actus reus and therefore the defendant could not be guilty.
Mens Rea
The Mens Rea of a crime is the mental element, this consists of intention or recklessness or an act. For example taking an unjustified risk or gross negligence that results in an injury or death of a victim will make part of the Mens Rea.
R v Adamako - The defendant was an anaesthetist that failed to observe that during an operation that the tube inserted in the patients mouth had become detached from the ventilator, this resulted in the patient suffering a cardiac arrest and eventually died.
It was held the defendant was guilty through gross negligence and that the defendant had failed to carry out his duty of care.
Intention is able to be separated into two forms, direct and oblique (indirect). Should a defendant point and fire a gun he has intention. Most cases within criminal law will involve direct intention, this is usually where the defendants carries out an act to achieve a desired result.
Attorney-General of Northern Ireland v Gallagher – The defendant wanted to kill his wife, in order to carry this out he drank a large amount of whiskey, to give himself ‘Dutch courage’
It was held not it was enough for there to be intention before becoming intoxicated.
Indirect or oblique intention is the more difficult of the two forms. This type of intention exists when the defendant’s carries out an act to achieve a desired outcome but in doing so also achieves another, undesired result. R v Nedrick – The defendant poured petrol through a letter box and then set it alight, this resulted in the death of a child. The defendant had only intended to frighten the mother but not harms any victims.
It was ruled that it did not matter that the defendant didn’t intent to harm anyone but the results of his actions were a virtual certainty and foreseeable, therefore a conviction of manslaughter was given.
R v Woollin – The defendant lost his temper with his three month old baby son and threw the child onto a hard surface, causing head injuries from which the child died.

This followed part of the ratio decidendi set by Nedrick, where the defendants actions have a virtual certainty of significant harm or death.
Types of Causation
Causations refers the whether a defendants conduct or omission caused the harm or the damage concerned with the victim. Causation within criminal liability is can be divided into factual and legal causation, each of which makes use of two tests. Factual causation uses the ‘but for’ test to determine whether a defendant is liable. While legal causation make use of the ‘thin skull’ rule, where a defendant must take the victim as they find them, any personal