Andrews v DPP
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judgment Date | 1937 |
| Year | 1937 |
| Date | 1937 |
| Court | House of Lords |
Criminal law - Manslaughter - Dangerous driving of motor car - Direction to jury -
Where a person is indicted for manslaughter for having, while driving a motor car, unlawfully killed a man, the judge, in directing the jury, should in the first instance tell them that the facts must be such that in their opinion the negligence of the accused went beyond a mere matter of compensation between subjects and showed such a disregard for the life and safety of others as to amount to a crime against the State and conduct deserving punishment; he should then explain that such degree of negligence is not necessarily the same as that which is required for the offence of dangerous driving; and further he should indicate the conditions under which they may acquit the accused of manslaughter and convict him of dangerous driving. A direction that all the jury have to consider is whether death was caused by dangerous driving within s. 11 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, and no more, is a misdirection.
Rex v. Bateman (
APPEAL from the Court of Criminal Appeal dismissing an appeal against conviction (reported sub nom. Rex v. Andrews.F1
The appellant, Wilfred Andrews, was convicted at Leeds Assizes, before du Parcq J., of the manslaughter of one William Burton Craven through the dangerous driving of a motor car, and was sentenced to fifteen months' imprisonment and disqualified for life from holding a driving licence.
In the course of his summing up du Parcq J. said: “If a man is doing an unlawful act — if he is doing something which the law says that he must not do, and, because he is doing it, he kills somebody, then he is guilty not only of that unlawful act, but of manslaughter. He has killed somebody in the course of doing, and because he was doing, an unlawful thing …. If he is driving [a motor car] recklessly he commits an offence whether he kills anybody or whether he does not, but if because he is driving recklessly somebody is killed, then he is guilty of the offence of manslaughter …. I think I ought to tell you this, that if you thought that although he drove recklessly, and although he drove at a speed or in a manner dangerous to the public within the words of [s. 11 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930F2] but that it was not because of that that this man was killed, the law would entitle you to convict him not of manslaughter but of dangerous driving. But in this case I am bound to tell you that if you think that he was driving recklessly and in a dangerous manner within the meaning of these words, and it was because of that that Mr. Craven was killed, then it is your bounden duty to convict him of manslaughter.”
In his grounds of appeal the appellant said that the judge misdirected the jury (1.) in telling them that if the appellant was driving recklessly within the meaning of s. 11 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, and because he was doing so someone was killed, the appellant was guilty of manslaughter; (2.) in telling them that if they thought that if the appellant was driving recklessly and in a manner dangerous within the meaning of s. 11 and it was because of that that Craven was killed, it was their bounden duty to convict the appellant of manslaughter; (3.) in failing to tell them that unless the appellant had been proved guilty of negligence causing the death, and of such negligence as went beyond a mere matter of compensation between subjects and showed such disregard for the life and safety of others as to amount to a crime against the State and conduct deserving punishment, they should not find him guilty of manslaughter; (4.) in failing to tell them that if the appellant was merely proved guilty of reckless or dangerous driving as defined by s. 11 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, and by such reckless or dangerous driving to have caused the death of someone they should not find him guilty of manslaughter.
The Court of Criminal Appeal having dismissed the appeal, the Attorney-General certified that the decision involved a point of law of exceptional public interest and that in his opinion it was desirable in the public interest that a further appeal should be brought. Pursuant to that certificate Andrews appealed to this House.
Russell Vick K.C. and G. S. Waller for the appellant. If du Parcq J. was correct in directing the jury that if the accused person had done anything that was expressly forbidden by statute and by so doing had caused or accelerated the death of another, he would be guilty of manslaughter, it follows that if a motorist drives his car without due care and has the misfortune to cause the death of a person he would be guilty of manslaughter. Such a proposition is much too wide and cannot be supported. The statements in the older writers — Hale's Pleas of the Crown, vol. 1, p. 475; Foster's Crown Cases, p. 258, and East's Pleas of the Crown, vol. 1, p. 219, go much beyond what more recently has been held to constitute the offence of manslaughter. In Reg. v. FranklinF3 it was held that the mere fact that a person has committed a civil wrong against another ought not to be used as an incident which is a necessary step in a criminal case, apart from the question of criminal intention. There a man wrongfully took a box from a refreshment stall...
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