Recent Judicial Decisions
| Published date | 01 October 1967 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6704001011 |
| Author | J. C. Wood |
| Date | 01 October 1967 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
PROFESSOR
J.
C.
WOOD,
LL.M.
The University of Sheffield
Legal Correspondent of The Police Journal
MANSLAUGHTER
R. v.
Lamb
[1967] 2 All E.R. 1282 Court of Appeal
This case arose out of a set of simple and tragic facts.
Lamb
pointed arevolver at his friend and pressed the trigger. The re-
volver fired and the friend was killed. The accused knew that the
revolver
had
two bullets in its chamber
but
as neither was opposite
the barrel he mistakenly thought they could not be fired.
The
mechanism of a revolver turns the chamber before firing and so a
bullet was in fact fired. Expert witnesses agreed
that
the mistake
made by the accused was a natural one for anyone without special
knowledge.
The
whole incident was being treated as a joke both
by the accused
and
by the deceased
and
it was not doubted that
the accused's version of the happenings was correct.
The accused was charged with manslaughter and at his trial the
Judge, Glyn-Jones J. directed the jury in the following terms:
"It
is manslaughter if death results
from
an unlawful
and
dangerous
act on the
part
of the accused.
It
is also manslaughter if
death
results
from
an extreme degree
of
carelessness, negligence,
on
the
part
of the accused.
Those
are
both
grounds
on
which manslaughter
can be found; it is quite possible
that
to some extent they overlap
...
"
The jury convicted of manslaughter and the foreman, asked by the
Judge, stated
that
they did so on both these grounds. The Court
of Appeal allowed the appeal and quashed the sentence. They
did so basically on two inter-related grounds - the erroneous
formulation of the essentials of the crime of manslaughter in the
Judge's summing up
and
his failure to
put
to the jury the accused's
defence of accident.
The Court of Appeal could not accept the Judge's interpreta-
tion of the
term"
unlawful
act".
He
had
indicated that pointing
arevolver and pulling the trigger was an unlawful act irrespective
of the presence of an intent to alarm or injure. He
had
the view
that
manslaughter required no intent. The Court of Appeal main-
tained
that
mens rea is an essential ingredient of manslaughter
and
on the facts of this case, in regard to the first head, this could
only be established by showing at least the intention to assault.
October 1967 475
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