Homicide and Non-Fatal Offences Lecture Review

Vocabulary-style flashcards based on lecture notes covering homicide law, involuntary manslaughter, non-fatal offences, and relevant case law.

Murder

The unlawful killing of a person under the Queen’s (or King’s) peace with malice aforethought.

Malice aforethought

The modern legal requirement for murder's mens rea, interpreted as either the intention to kill or the intention to cause serious bodily harm.

General Rule (Golden Rule)

Established in Maloney, a judicial direction where juries use common sense to decide if the defendant intended to kill or cause serious harm.

Virtual Certainty Test

A test for difficult cases established in Nedrick and Woollin where the jury may infer intention if death or serious injury was recognized as a virtually certain consequence of the defendant's conduct.

Unlawful-act manslaughter

A form of involuntary manslaughter requiring an underlying unlawful act, objective dangerousness, and causation.

Objective Dangerousness Test

Derived from R v Church, it asks if sober and reasonable people would recognize that the act would expose another person to at least the risk of some harm.

Gross Negligence Manslaughter

Occurs when a lawful act is performed with grossly careless conduct that causes death, following the Adam Arco framework of duty, breach, and causation.

Serious and obvious risk of death

The threshold for gross negligence manslaughter where the jury must decide if a reasonably competent person would have recognized the defendant's conduct created an obvious risk of death at the time of the breach.

Mandatory life imprisonment

The statutory outcome for murder under Section 11 of the Murder Abolition of the Death Penalty Act 1965.

Whole-Life Orders

A sentence reserved for the most egregious murders where the offender will never be released, such as in the cases of Wayne Couzens or Lucy Letby.

Assault

Intentionally or recklessly causing another person to apprehend immediate unlawful violence, with no physical contact required.

Battery

The intentional or reckless application of unlawful force to another person where physical contact is essential.

Collins v Wilcox

A key case establishing the de-minimis principle, where ordinary physical contact in daily life does not constitute battery.

Actual Bodily Harm (ABH)

Under Section 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, any injury more than merely transient or trifling, including serious psychiatric injury proven by medical evidence.

Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) - Section 20

Defined as Unlawful Wounding or Inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm, where the defendant is reckless as to causing some physical harm.

Section 18 Wounding or Causing GBH with Intent

The most serious non-fatal offence, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, requiring specific intent to cause serious bodily harm or resist lawful apprehension.

Wound

Legally defined as an injury that breaks both the dermis and epidermis, resulting in bleeding.

Self-Defence

Under Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967, the use of reasonable force assessed objectively to prevent crime or protect oneself or property.

Mens Rea for Attempted Murder

Under the Criminal Attempts Act 1968 Section 1(1), the prosecution must prove a specific intent to kill; intent to cause GBH is insufficient.

Basic Intent Offences

Offences including Section 20 and Section 47 for which voluntary intoxication is generally not a valid defence.