Unlawful Act Manslaughter and Causation
| Published date | 01 December 2002 |
| Date | 01 December 2002 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201830206600606 |
| Author | Alan Reed |
| Subject Matter | Comment |
COMMENT
Unlawful ActManslaughter and
Causation
Alan Reed*
The Law Commission has
produced
adraft Report
which
grapples
with
some
very difficult issues in
the
area
of
causation.'
Causation principles
have
an
underlying
significance in UK criminal law. In essence,
when
the
accused claims
not
to
have
brought
about
('caused')
the
outcome
prescribed by a result crime, he is saying
that
he did
not
commit
the
crime. The supposition is
that
the
result
may
have
come
about
through
some
other
(causal) means, or
not
come
about
at all. In
either
scenario
the
most
that
the
defendant
can
be guilty of is an
attempt
or some
other
inchoate
version of liability. The purpose, however, of this
comment
is
not
to
deconstruct
the
adduced
proposals in
the
draft
Report-this
will
be left for
another
occasion. Rather,
the
aim
is to focus
more
specifically
on
how
UK substantive law has struggled in
recent
times to reconcile
appropriate
principles
on
causation
and
the
supply of drugs. Part of
the
dilemmatic choice
here
is
which
kinds of
'independent'
conduct
sever
causal ties
and
may
exculpate
the
accused in relation to homicide. The
issue has
been
whether
involuntary
manslaughter
is apposite, establish-
ing an
unlawful
and
dangerous
act
when
there
has
been
self-injection of
heroin
prepared
by
another.
Most recently,
the
matter
has arisen before
the
Court
of Appeal in Dias.:
which
is
evaluated
below
in
order
to
propound
a
normative
test to be
supererogatory
in this
arena.
The
facts
in Dias
The facts in Dias are grim. Vdied
on
27 August 2000,
after
taking
heroin
in
the
company
of D,
the
appellant.
When
interviewed, D said
that
he
and
V
had
jointly
bought
the
heroin.
D
further
stated
that
he
had
prepared
the
heroin,
and
drawn
it into asyringe
but
that
V
had
injected
himself
with
the
syringe. Subsequently, D was later charged
with
man-
slaughter. At
the
trial
the
judge
directed
the
jury
that
manslaughter
was
proved
if
the
jury
were
satisfied so
that
they
were
sure
that
the
defen-
dant
had
assisted
and
deliberately
encouraged
V to take
the
heroin.
Moreover,
the
jury
was
informed
that
there
was no dispute
that
the
heroin
in
the
syringe was a cause of
death.
Significantly,
the
trial
judge
ruled
that
the
self-injection of
the
heroin
was itself
an
unlawful
act. On
the
judge's
ruling it followed
that
aiding
and
abetting
such
an offence
would
make
Dcriminally liable as a
secondary
party
for
that
unlawful
act
which
had
caused
the
death
of
V.
The
defendant
was convicted. He
•
Professor
of Law.
Sunderland
University.
IDraft Criminal Code: External Elements. 10 April
2002.
2
[200
I) EWCA
Crim
2896.
(2002)
Crim
LR
490.
504
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