Gross negligence manslaughter Flashcards
(8 cards)
Gross negligence manslaughter
Gross negligence manslaughter is committed where the defendant owes the victim a duty of care but
breaches that duty in a way that is so criminal it is negligent, causing the death of the victim. It can be committed by an act or an omission, neither of which has to be unlawful
R v Adomako
The defendant was an anaesthetist. During an operation, one of the tubes supplying oxygen to the
patient became disconnected. The defendant failed to notice this until some minutes later when the
patient suffered a heart attack caused by the lack of oxygen. The patient suffered brain damage and
died six months later as a result.
Doctors giving evidence in the trial said that a competent anaesthetist would have noticed the
disconnection of the tube within 15 seconds and that the defendant’s failure to react was ‘abysmal’. The
trial judge directed the jury on and they convicted. The conviction gross negligence manslaughter
was upheld by the House of Lords
Elements from R V adomako
the existence of a duty of care by the defendant towards the victim
* a breach of that duty of care which causes death
* gross negligence which the jury considers to be so bad as to be criminal
R V Broughton
At a music festival, the defendant supplied the drugs which his girlfriend had a bad reaction to. He
remained with her as her condition deteriorated to the point where her life was obviously in danger. He
was charged with being grossly negligent in failing to obtain medical assistance, which was a
substantial cause of her death.
His conviction was quashed as the evidence could not prove causation – that she would have lived if
he had called for help. This is the criminal standard of proof.
R V Broughton test
six elements have been identified that the prosecution must prove before a defendant can be
convicted of gross negligence manslaughter:
i) The defendant owed an existing duty of care to the victim.
ii) The defendant negligently breached that duty of care.
iii) At the time of the breach there was a serious and obvious risk of death. Serious, in this context,
qualifies the nature of the risk of death as something much more than minimal or remote. Risk of
injury or illness, even serious injury or illness, is not enough. An obvious risk is one that is
present, clear, and unambiguous. It is immediately apparent, striking and glaring rather than
something that might become apparent on further investigation.
iv) It was reasonably foreseeable at the time of the breach of the duty that the breach gave rise to a
serious and obvious risk of death.
v) The breach of the duty caused or made a significant (i.e. more than minimal) contribution to the
death of the victim.
iv) In the view of the jury, the circumstances of the breach were truly exceptionally bad and so
reprehensible as to justify the conclusion that it amounted to gross negligence and required
criminal sanction.
The defendant has created a dangerous situation
A duty of care can exist where the defendant has created a state of affairs, which he or she knows or
ought reasonably to know, has become life-threatening. This was seen in the case of R V evans-vans purchased heroin and gave it to her half-sister who later self-ingested the drug. Evans recognised that the victim had symptoms akin to those of an overdose and remained with her mother and the victim, without calling for medical assistance as they feared getting into trouble. They checked on the victim at intervals throughout the evening and when they awoke the following morning the victim was dead. The cause of death was poisoning from heroin. The primary dispute in the first instance was whether the supply of drugs to her half-sister had created a duty of care between Evans and her half-sister. The jury agreed that there was a duty owed and Evans was convicted. Evans subsequently appealed.
Breach of duty causes the death
Once a duty of care has been shown to exist, it must be proved that the defendant was in breach of that
duty of care and that this breach caused the death of the victim.
Whether there is a breach of duty is a factual matter for the jury to decide. Did the defendant
negligently do or fail to do something? Causation is important, as it must be proved that the breach of
duty caused the death. The general rules on causation apply
