T4 Cases - Involuntary manslaughter Flashcards
Adomako (1995)
The appellant was an anaesthetist in charge of a patient during an eye operation. During the operation an oxygen pipe became disconnected and the patient died. The appellant failed to notice or respond to obvious signs of disconnection. The jury convicted him of gross negligence manslaughter.
The Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal but certified the following question to the House of Lords:
“In cases of manslaughter by criminal negligence not involving driving but involving a breach of duty is it a sufficient direction to the jury to adopt the gross negligence test set out by the Court of Appeal in the present case following R. v. Bateman (1925) 19 Cr. App. R. 8 and Andrews v. Director of Public Prosecutions [1937] A.C. 576, without reference to the test of recklessness as defined in R. v. Lawrence (Stephen) [1982] A.C. 510 or as adapted to the circumstances of the
case?”
Held:
His conviction for gross negligence manslaughter was upheld. The Lords ruled that the law as stated in R v Seymour [1983] 2 A.C. 493 should no longer apply since the underlying statutory provisions on which it rested have now been repealed by the Road Traffic Act 1991.
The certified question was answered thus:
“In cases of manslaughter by criminal negligence involving a breach of duty, it is a sufficient direction to the jury to adopt the gross negligence test set out by the Court of Appeal in the present case following R. v. Bateman 19 Cr. App. R. 8 and Andrews v. Director of Public Prosecutions [1937] A.C. 576 and that it is not necessary to refer to the definition of recklessness in R. v. Lawrence [1982] A.C.
510, although it is perfectly open to the trial judge to use the word “reckless” in its ordinary meaning as part of his exposition of the law if he deems it appropriate in the circumstances of the particular case.”
Lord Mackay LC set the test for gross negligence manslaughter:
“On this basis in my opinion the ordinary principles of the law of negligence apply to ascertain whether or not the defendant has been in breach of a duty of care towards the victim who has died. If such breach of duty is established the next question is whether that breach of duty caused the death of the victim. If so, the jury must go on to consider whether that breach of duty should be characterised as gross negligence and therefore as a crime. This will depend on the seriousness of the breach of duty committed by the defendant in all the circumstances in which the defendant was placed when it occurred. The jury will have to consider whether the extent to which the defendant’s conduct departed from the proper standard of care incumbent upon him, involving as it must have done a risk of death to the patient, was such that it should be judged criminal.
The essence of the matter which is supremely a jury question is whether having regard to the risk of death involved, the conduct of the defendant was so bad in all the circumstances as to amount in their judgment to a criminal act or omission…
It is true that to a certain extent this involves an element of circularity, but in this branch of the law I do not believe that is fatal to its being correct as a test of how far conduct must depart from accepted standards to be characterised as criminal. This is necessarily a question of degree and an attempt to specify that degree more closely is I think likely to achieve only a spurious precision.”
Kennedy (No. 2) (2007)
Facts: The appellant prepared a solution of heroin filled a syringe and handed it to Mr Bosque, a fellow resident at a hostel. Bosque injected himself and died. The appellant was convicted of supplying a class A drug and constructive manslaughter.
Two appeals to the Court of Appeal were unsuccessful. On the second appeal the Court of Appeal certified the following question of law:
“When is it appropriate to find someone guilty of manslaughter where that person has been involved in the supply of a class A controlled drug, which is then freely and voluntarily self-administered by the person to whom it was supplied, and the administration of the drug then causes his death?”
Held (HL): The appeal was allowed and the appellant’s conviction for manslaughter quashed.
“It is possible to imagine factual scenarios in which two people could properly be regarded as acting together to administer an injection. But nothing of the kind was the case here. As in R v Dalby and R v Dias the appellant supplied the drug to the deceased, who then had a choice, knowing the facts, whether to inject himself or not. The heroin was, as the certified question correctly recognises, self-administered, not jointly administered. The appellant did not administer the drug. Nor, for reasons already given, did the appellant cause the drug to be administered to or taken by the deceased. The answer to the certified question is: “In the case of a fully-informed and responsible adult, never”.
R v Evans (2009)
The appellant was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter along with her mother in relation to the death of her 17 year old sister, Carly Townsend, who died of a heroin overdose. The appellant was 8 years older than her sister. The appellant, her mother and Carly all had a history of heroin addiction. Carly had just been released on licence from a detention and treatment order and a condition of the licence was that she resided at her mother’s house. The appellant moved in with her mother after her boyfriend was sent to prison. The appellant bought some heroin and gave it to Carly. Carly self injected the heroin and then developed symptoms which the appellant, from her own experience, recognised as being consistent with an overdose. The appellant and her mother decided not to seek medical assistance for fear of getting into trouble. Carly died. The appellant appealed against her conviction for gross negligence manslaughter on the grounds that the judge had left it to the jury to decide whether the appellant owed a duty of care and that it was wrong to leave this to the jury where this would involve an extension of principles relating to duty of care.
Held:
The judge was wrong to leave the jury to decide the issue of duty of care. The existence, or otherwise, of a duty of care or a duty to act, is a question of law for the judge: the question whether the facts establish the existence of the duty is for the jury. However, the mis-direction did not render the conviction unsafe. The appellant’s duty of care arose not out of her familial relationship, nor from her actions in seeking to care for Carly, but from her supplying the heroin. She had in effect created a dangerous situation and failed to take action to reduce the risk by summoning medical assistance which would have saved her.
Lord Chief Justice:
“The duty necessary to found gross negligence manslaughter is plainly not confined to cases of a familial or professional relationship between the defendant and the deceased. In our judgment, consistently with Adomako and the link between civil and criminal liability for negligence, for the purposes of gross negligence manslaughter, when a person has created or contributed to the creation of a state of affairs which he knows, or ought reasonably to know, has become life threatening, a consequent duty on him to act by taking reasonable steps to save the other’s life will normally arise.”
R v JM and SM (2012)
The prosecution appealed under section 58 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 against a ruling, made prior to the jury being sworn, that taking the prosecution case at its highest it was not open to a properly directed jury to convict either respondent of manslaughter.
The ruling focussed on whether the respondents could be properly convicted of manslaughter if they did not reasonably foresee the sort of physical harm caused to the victim. The respondents were charged with manslaughter on the basis that whilst they did not intend to cause the victim’s death, his death was caused by their joint unlawful and dangerous act or acts.
The victim was a 40 year old doorman who, like everyone who knew him, believed himself to be in good health. In fact he was suffering from a renal artery aneurism which was about 0.7cm in diameter. On the night of his death he was working and had asked the respondents to leave a night club before latterly making himself available to assist his colleagues in controlling a violent incident that was instigated by the respondents outside the venue. Shortly after returning to the venue the victim collapsed and died due to blood loss resulting from the rupture of his aneurism.
In determining that no reasonable jury could convict the respondents the trial judge had directed himself that following Carey, Cyoel and Foster [2006] EWCA Crim 17, in order to sustain a conviction for manslaughter the prosecution would have to show that the victim had died as a result of the sort of physical harm that any reasonable and sober person would inevitably realise the unlawful act in question risked causing.
The appellant submitted that the decision in Carey ought to be approached with considerable care as there were clear important factual differences when compared to the present case and it had been decided on the basis of the flawed “aggregation” misdirection. It was further submitted that Carey had not altered the well established principles identified in Church [1966] 1 QB 59 that all that was required was the foreseeability of the risk of some harm resulting from the actions of the respondents.
It was held that certainly since Church and DPP v Newbury [1977] AC 500, it has never been a requirement that the defendant personally should foresee any specific harm at all, or that the reasonable bystander should recognise the precise form or “sort” of harm which did ensue. What matters is whether reasonable and sober people would recognise that the unlawful activities of the defendant inevitably subjected the deceased to the risk of some physical harm resulting from them. This is a question that ought to be resolved as a matter of fact rather than law. The appeal was therefore allowed.
In cases of involuntary manslaughter a jury will be entitled to convict a defendant if a reasonable and sober person would recognise that the unlawful acts of that defendant would have placed the deceased at risk of some harm as a result.
R v Meeking (2012)
In order to rely on conduct comprising interference with a motor vehicle within the Road Traffic Act 1988 s.22A(1)(b) as evidence of unlawful act manslaughter, the section was not to be read as requiring the interference to have taken place prior to the driving, or to have altered the external and physical state of the vehicle. A passenger who applied the handbrake while the vehicle was moving deliberately interfered with a mechanical part of the car in a manner that was obviously dangerous to any reasonable person, and the offence would be made out.
