s267(1)(a) Arson (Life)

Question 1

Elements

Answer 1

• Intentionally / Recklessly
• Damages by fire / damages by means of explosives
• Any property
• If he or she ought to know that danger to life is likely to ensue

Question 2

Intentionally

Answer 2

Intent - act or omission done deliberately. Must be more than involuntary or accidental. Intention to commit an act and intention to get a specific result.
COLLISTER - Offenders actions, words, before during and after event, the surrounding circumstances, the nature of the act itself.

Question 3

Recklessly

Answer 3

Acting recklessly - two fold test

• Consciously and deliberately taking an unjustifiable risk (subjective test)
• that the risk was one that was unreasonable to take in the circumstances as they were known to the defendant (objective test).

CAMERON
Recklessness established if:
- Defendant recognised there was a real possibility that:
——- Their actions would bring about the proscribed result
——- That the proscribed circumstances existed
- Having regard to that risk, those actions were unreasonable.

Question 4

Damage

Answer 4

ARCHER - Property maybe damaged if it’s suffers temporary or permanent physical harm or temporary or permanent impairment of its use or value.

Question 5

Fire

Answer 5

The result of the process of combustion, a chemical reaction between fuel and oxygen, triggered by heat. For fire to start or continue, each of the three elements, fuel oxygen and heat, must be present in the correct proportions.

Although fire damage is often burning or charring, it is not necessary that the property actually be set alight, it can include melting, blistering of paint or significant smoke damage my suffice.

Question 6

Explosive

Answer 6

s2 Arms Act 1983:

(a) any substance, mixture, or combination of substances, which in its normal state are capable either of decomposition at such rapid rate as to result in an explosion or producing a pyrotechnic effect, and

(b) includes gunpowder, dynamite, gun cotton, blasting powder, coloured flares, fog signals, fuses, rockets, detonators, ammunition, and

(c) includes any device, contrivance or article, which uses any substance or mixture or combination of substances in A or B, as an integral part of it, for the purpose of producing an explosion or a ballistic or pyrotechnic effect. Does not include firearms, and

(d) Does not include any firework.

Question 7

Property

Answer 7

s2 CA 1961:

Includes any real and personal property, and any estate or interest in any real or personal property (money electricity) and includes any debt, and anything in action, and any other right or interest.

Question 8

If he or she ought to know that danger to life is likely to ensue

Answer 8

Knowledge -
SIMESTER AND BROOKBANKS - knowing or are correctly believing. A defendant may believe something wrongly but cannot know something is false.

• What was the defendant thinking? Did they know human life likely to be endangered? (SUBJECTIVE TEST)
•  what would a reasonable person have thought in the same circumstances question? (OBJECTIVE TEST). 

Question 9

Danger to life

Answer 9

Life in this context means human life. Danger must be to a life of someone other than the defendant.