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Criminal Law - Involuntary Manslaughter
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Comprehensive notes on Criminal Law in the UK, on involuntary manslaughter.
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CRIMINAL LAWREVISION NOTES
INTRODUCTION:
INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER: where the defendant commits an
unlawful killing, but lacks the mens rea (the intention) for murder. This
means they have caused the victim’s death through their recklessness or
criminal negligence.
There are three main types of involuntary manslaughter:
CONSTRUCTIVE MANSLAUGHTER: where the defendant commits an
unlawful, dangerous act which results in the death of the victim.
GROSS NEGLIGENCE MANSLAUGHTER: where the defendant’s grossly
negligent conduct, in breach of their duty, results in the death of the victim.
RECKLESS MANSLAUGHTER: where the defendant foresaw death/ serious
injury resulting from their conduct, but did not directly intend that
consequence or foresaw it as virtually certain.
1. CONSTRUCTIVE MANSLAUGHTER:
OVERVIEW:
! This is also known as unlawful act manslaughter.
Constructive manslaughter is committed when the accused performs an
unlawful and dangerous act that has resulted in the death of the
victim, but the defendant did not intend or foresee death/ serious injury
to the claimant.
In brief, the three elements of constructive manslaughter are:
1. There must be an unlawful act.
2. The unlawful act must be dangerous.
3. The unlawful, dangerous act must cause death.
ELEMENTS OF CONSTRUCTIVE MANSLAUGHTER:
A. THERE MUST BE AN UNLAWFUL ACT:
(i) The unlawful act must be criminal:
The actus reus of constructive manslaughter is an act that is unlawful
under criminal law, rather than a generally unlawful act (i.e. a merely
unlawful act under tort law would not suffice). An example of a relevant
scenario will be an ordinary case of battery which goes wrong and ends
in death – known as the “one punch killing.”
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, CRIMINAL LAW
REVISION NOTES
Cato: the defendant injected the victim with heroin and vice versa. The victim
later died, as the heroine was impure. Although the administering of the substance
was consensual, the court held that, because administering a noxious substance
to another remains a criminal offence, this constituted a criminal act (against
s. 23 of OAPA) for constructive manslaughter.
! Note that the mens rea is the fault element of the criminal act being relied
upon. For example, where there is the administering of a noxious substance, there
must be an intention to administer that substance. Foresight of death or harm is
not necessary.
R v Franklin: the person who accidentally dropped a box off Brighton pier and
onto the victim’s head was not guilty of manslaughter. This was because their
conduct was not a crime; they had merely committed the tort of trespass to
goods.
This requirement means that if the criminal act, such as battery, cannot be
established, such as due to the defendant having a defence, there cannot
be a conviction for manslaughter.
Simon Slingsby: the accused inflicted serious internal injuries on the deceased
with a signet ring during violent but consensual sexual activity. However, since the
injuries were not inflicted deliberately and were an accidental by-product
of consensual conduct, there was no sexual assault to support a conviction
for manslaughter.
R v Scarlett: a pub-owner evicted a drunken customer from his pub. The
customer fell onto the pavement while being evicted and died due to the injuries
they sustained. However, as no excessive force was used when the pub-owner
threw the customer out of the pub, there was no assault and therefore, no
support for a conviction of constructive manslaughter.
The act that causes death must be criminally unlawful in itself and cannot
become criminal simply because it was performed in a negligent/
dangerous fashion.
Andrews v DPP: Andrews, driving carelessly, ran into a pedestrian and killed
them. The court stated that driving that was performed in a dangerous fashion
is not sufficient to construct an unlawful act for the purposes of
manslaughter. Rather than constructive manslaughter, gross negligence
manslaughter would have been more appropriate.
(ii) An omission cannot form the conduct element:
There must be the commission of an unlawful act – there cannot be an
omission that amounts to an unlawful act.
! For example, a parent striking their child vs. a parent omitting to call a doctor for
their poorly child.
⇩
B. THE ACT MUST BE DANGEROUS:
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