Description
Part A:
At 10pm on Halloween, Gary and Phil, both aged 14 years old, were out ‘trick-or-treating’ on their local housing estate. Unfortunately, not many of their neighbours answered the door and they became increasingly annoyed with the lack of treats. They noticed very loud music and shouting coming from the inside 66 Kruger Street. Gary rang the doorbell and stood back. Inside, a Halloween party was in full swing in the back living-room and kitchen with over 30 adult guests. The owner of the house, Carrie, heard the doorbell and opened the door and both boys shouted, ‘trick or treat.’ Carrie laughed and said ‘you really need to get a life at your age, boys’ and slammed the door. Gary was furious and reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a small pack of five air bomb fireworks. Looking at Phil he said, ‘I was saving these for later in the week, but should we give these people a trick instead?’ Phil nodded and they both positioned 5 fireworks in a plant pot near to the front door and lit them together, then ran down the street to watch. Neither of them noticed a bag of clothing on the step that Carrie had left out for a charity collection.
As the firebombs exploded, sparks flew in all directions, but no one inside the house seemed to notice. Disappointed, the boys decided to go home. They noticed that there was a still a small flame alight in the plant pot, but they both decided it would burn itself out and to leave it and walked home. Unknown to both them and the occupants of the house, the small flame spread to the charity bag, and then quickly to the door. Within minutes, the door was ablaze with the fire spreading quickly inside the house.
Most of the guests managed to escape through the back of the house without injury. Carrie had gone upstairs to her bedroom, at the back of the house, to freshen up and by the time she noticed the fire, she was unable to reach the ground floor via the stairs. She decided to jump from a bedroom window which was 10 metres high breaking both her legs and puncturing a lung in the fall. As she was screaming in pain, her friend Damien gave her heroin, to ‘numb the pain.’ Carrie, who had never taken this type of drug before, decided to try it, but later died in hospital from complications arising from a combination of the asphyxiation, and a punctured lung exacerbated by her reaction to the heroin.
1. 1) Using case law to illustrate your answer, analyse any issues of causation raised by the case scenario. (500 words)
2. 2) Using the principles of mens rea, identify which crimes may have been committed, using examples of case law to support you reasoning. (500 words)
Part B:
‘Now I have to confess that, as soon as somebody starts using an expression like ‘oblique intention’ I become suspicious; because I suspect that it is only necessary to use the rather mysterious adjective ‘oblique’ to bring within ‘intention’ something which is not intended at all.’
R. Goff ‘The Mental Element in the Crime of Murder’ (1988) 104 LQR 30
‘The surest test of a new legal rule is not whether it satisfies a team of logicians but how it performs in the real world. With the benefit of hindsight, the verdict must be that the rule laid down by the majority in R v Caldwell failed this test………. the law took a wrong turn.’
R v G and another [2003] UKHL 50 House of Lords Lord Steyn @ 57
Over the years, the courts have found it difficult to define mens rea elements such as intention and recklessness, despite these being everyday words. With reference to case law and academic commentary, critically analyse and evaluate the approach the courts have taken to the meaning of one of these terms. (1000 words)