Involuntary Manslaughter in UK Law

A man is guilty of involuntary manslaughter when he intends an unlawful act and one likely to do harm to the person and death results which was neither foreseen nor intended. Bearing that in mind, it is quite consistent that a man who has counselled and procured such an illegal and dangerous act from which death, unintended, results should be guilty of accessary before the fact to manslaughter.

It was an act which made it possible, or even likely, that harm would occur subsequently, particularly if the drug was supplied to somebody who was on drugs. In all the reported cases, the physical act has been one which inevitably would subject the other person to the risk of some harm from the act itself In this case, the supply of drugs would itself have caused no harm unless the deceased had subsequently used the drugs in a form and quantity which was dangerous.

The kind of harm envisaged in all the reported cases of involuntary manslaughter was physical injury of some kind as an immediate and inevitable result of the unlawful act, e.g. a blow on the chin which knocks the victim against a wall causing a fractured skull and death, or threatening with a loaded gun which accidentally fires, or dropping a large stone on a train ( D.P.P. v. Newbury supra) or threatening another with an open razor and stumbling with death resulting ( R. v. Larkin supra).

So far as Doctor Sullman was concerned, he believed he was simply required to supervise the insertion of the lumbar puncture needle by an inexperienced Houseman. He understood the drugs were for administration by lumbar puncture. He did not have special experience or knowledge of cytotoxic drugs. Although the box in which the drugs came was red and properly labelled, it was accepted that to put the two syringes into the same box was bad practice which is no longer followed.

My Lords, I do not doubt that the principles applicable to the implied repeal of an earlier by a later statute are well established. But today those old cases must be approached and applied with caution. Until comparatively late in the last century statutes were not drafted with the same skill as today. No doubt the prosecuting authorities today would only prosecute for manslaughter in the case of death caused by the reckless driving of a motor vehicle on a road in a very grave case.

Vague laws which purport to create criminal liability are undesirable, and in extreme cases, where it occurs, their very vagueness may make it impossible to identify the conduct which is prohibited by a criminal sanction. If the court is forced to guess at the ingredients of a purported crime any conviction for it would be unsafe. That said, however, the requirement is for sufficient rather than absolute certainty.