Finlayson v HM Advocate

JurisdictionScotland
Judgment Date20 June 1978
Docket NumberNo. 5.
Date20 June 1978
CourtHigh Court of Justiciary

JC

L.J.-G. Emslie, Lords Cameron, Johnston.

No. 5.
FINLAYSON
and
H. M. ADVOCATE

Culpable homicide—Cause of death—Victim died after removal from life-support machine—Whether break in chain of causation.

The applicant was charged with culpable homicide by injecting a controlled drug recklessly into the person of a named victim. The injection caused serious brain damage and brain death occurred. The heart would have failed had not the victim been placed on a life-support machine. After consultation between medical experts and the victim's parents, it was decided to discontinue the artificial life-support on the ground that the brain damage was complete and irreversible. Thereafter the victim died. It was argued that the death of the victim was caused, not by the act of the applicant, but by the deliberate discontinuance of the life-support treatment which was an extraneous and extrinsic act which broke any chain of causation between the act of the applicant causing the brain damage and the victim's death.

Held that, once the initial reckless act causing injury had been committed, the natural consequence, which the perpetrator must accept, was that the victim's future depended on a number of consequences, including whether any particular treatment was available, and, if it was available, whether it was medically reasonable or justifiable to attempt it and to continue it. The decision taken by medical experts and the victim's parents to switch off the life-support system did not constitute an extraneous or extrinsic act nor was it unwarrantable; and application for leave to appeal refused.

David Finlayson was charged on indictment that, being in possession of morphine, a controlled drug, he inserted into the person of David William Wilson a syringe containing morphine and diazepam, both being noxious substances, and recklessly injected into the person of Wilson a mixture of said noxious substances in quantities dangerous to health and to life in consequence whereof he did die, and he did kill him. The facts are fully narrated in the opinion of the Court,infra. After trial, the applicant was convicted on that charge and his application for leave to appeal against conviction was heard before the High Court of Justiciary on 20th June 1978.

At advising on 20th June 1978, the opinion of the Court was delivered by the Lord Justice-General.

LORD JUSTICE-GENERAL (Emslie).—This is an application for leave to appeal against conviction by David...

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8 cases
  • Law Hospital NHS Trust v Lord Advocate and Another
    • United Kingdom
    • Court of Session
    • 22 Marzo 1996
  • Airedale NHS Trust v Bland
    • United Kingdom
    • House of Lords
    • 4 Febrero 1993
    ...once it is assumed that the conduct is lawful. See Reg. v. Blaue [1975] 1 W.L.R. 1411; Reg. v. Malcherek [1981] 1 W.L.R. 690; Finlayson v. H.M. Advocate 1978 S.L.T. (Notes) 60. It does not perhaps follow that the conduct of the doctors is not also causative, but this is of no interest si......
  • William Johnston (junior)+charles Woolard V. Her Majesty's Advocate
    • United Kingdom
    • High Court of Justiciary
    • 21 Abril 2009
    ...contributed to death, he had been properly convicted. A similar approach had been adopted in the earlier case of Finlayson v HM Advocate 1979 JC 33, where it was argued that the discontinuance of life support treatment broke the chain of causation between the criminal act which had caused b......
  • R v Simon Kennedy
    • United Kingdom
    • House of Lords
    • 17 Octubre 2007
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