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Law unit 3
Section A - criminal law (offences against the person)
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➢ Non-fatal offences against the person ➢ Fatal offences against the person ➢ Defences ➢ Critical evaluation of law on the offences against the person

Summary of non-fatal offences:-
|Crime |Actus Reus |Mens Rea |Cases |
|Assault |Causing the victim to fear |Intention or subjective |Logdon v DPP |
| |immediate, unlawful personal |recklessness. |R v Ireland |
| |violence. | |R v Constanza |
|Battery |Inflicting unlawful personal |Intention or subjective |R v Fagan |
| |violence. |recklessness. |R v Thomas |
|Section 47: ABH |Assault or battery causing actual|Intention or recklessness. |R v Miller |
| |bodily harm. | |R v Chan-fook |
| | | |R v Savage |
| | | |R v Parmenter |
| | | |R v Roberts |
|Section 20: GBH/ wounding |GBH: serious injury. |Intention or recklessness. |JJC v Eisenhower |
| |Wounding: all layers of skin must| |DPP v Smith |
| |be broken. | |R v Mowatt |
| | | |R v Grimshaw |
|Section 18: GBH with intent |Wounding or GBH as in s.20. |Specific intent to cause GBH or |R v Nedrick |
| | |intent to resist lawful arrest. |R v Woollin. |

Fatal offences:-
Homicide is the unlawful killing of a human being. There are three kinds of homicide: murder, voluntary manslaughter, and involuntary manslaughter.

Murder:-
Murder is the most serious crime and if convicted will result in a mandatory life sentence. Murder is a common law offence meaning there is no Act of Parliament outlining the law on murder as it is developed in the courts over the years. Murder has been defined as the unlawful killing with malice aforethought. The actus reus is the unlawful killing and the mens rea is the malice aforethought.

There are two ways in which a person can be found guilty of murder: 1. Intends to kill the victim and succeeds – express malice aforethought. 2. Intends to cause grievous bodily harm to the victim and the harm kills them – implied malice aforethought. (Vickers)

The actus reus can be an omission if the defendant had a duty of care to the victim and breached the duty by failing to do something (Gibbins & Proctor). It is necessary to establish the chain of causation in order to establish whether the defendant caused or brought about the death of the victim. This is done by employing the but for test and is demonstrated in the case of Pagett where he used his girlfriend as a human shield. The chain of causation can be broken by an intervening act