Criminal law lectures: Actus Reus

Actus reus - the guilty act
Mens rea - state of mind of the defendant

Actus reus – conduct
- result or consequence crimes (ie murder, ‘I shot someone, they died’)
- circumstances, ie theft/ you can only steel something if it already
belongs to someone else.

Absence of a valid defence à valid defence actus reus + mens rea (liable), but with a justification or excuse for the action, (ie I killed a man because he was attacking me)

-Actus Reus requires a willed act of the defendant
- state of affairs
Winzar v CC of Kent

An omission (ie failure to take action) will generally not ground liability.
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however, there are examples à RTA 1988 s. 6 Failure to give a breathalyser sample
when asked to by a police officer.
à P.C. Dytham failed to act to prevent a man being killed.
à Speck was an adult male. An eight year old girl put her
hand on his penis, during which time he became
sexually aroused. He remained passive throughout the
incident. He was found guilty of gross indecency for
failing to discourage her and prevent this event.

When faced with a particular crime, do omissions cover it?
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Failure to carry out a particular duty example: You must save your children or elderly parent if they are drowning in a puddle.

Gibbons and Proctor 1913 à Gibbons was the biological father of seven year old victim. Mother was no longer involved. Proctor lived with Gibbons and ran the household with money received from Gibbons. Proctor allowed the child to starve. Proctor found liable because mother had been excluded from the household/ therefore Proctor was regarded by the court to have taken on the ‘moral and legal’ responsibility to look after the child. She had become the ‘de facto’ mother. Gibbon was also found liable of failing to ensure that the person he had obligated to look after his child carried out her responsibilities.

Stone and Dobinson à If you take on duty of care (and exclude others) and fail to carry these out, you become guilty of manslaughter A lodger had become ill. The two defendants looked after her for a bit. Then they stopped. As she was bedridden and unable to get outside assistance, she died.

Pittwood case à Failure to carry out his contractual duty to close a gate when the train came and so people were killed. He was found guilty of homicide.

Fagan ran over a police man’s foot and made no attempt to remove the vehicle à classified as assault. Weight of the man transferred from the car to the policeman’s foot, therefore treated the same as a club being used as an assault weapon.

Miller –Bed mattress on fire after he dropped a cigarette butt/ failed to put it out/ would have been at no personal risk to intervene à therefore guilty of arson.

You require an actus reus and a mens rea

What do you do in a murder case if the actus reus has been and gone before a mens rea? Thabo Meli caseà Where you have a plan, the end result being to kill someone. If they die at the wrong place, you are still liable.

Church case àman lashed out, thought he had killed the person, panicked and tried to dispose of the body in the canal. She drowned.
Court found that he had the mens rea when he had struck her.

Courts don’t take if there is a coincidence between actus reus and mens rea, if there is clear moral culpability.

Actus Reus is very much about omissions

Mens rea = cluster of mental states.
Mens rea does not always have to cover the entire actus reus?
Example: Gay Christian poet wrote about Jesus. Blasphemy not because the
writer published it, but because it enraged Christians.


In some cases the mens rea is very small indeed;

-Prince Case at the beginning of the century. Man convicted of taking a girl under 16 out of the possession of her parents. Did not matter that he thought she was 18. Statute didn’t mention knowledge. []
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became the authority for ages, knowledge of case irrelevant in sexual offences
concerning age.

However, recently the Young Man’s defence has been incorporated into statute. If you are under 24, you are only guilt of sexual assault if you knew she was under 16.

Assumption that most crimes require a men rea –Liberal state.
Strict Liability offences are generally a bad thing
Having little or no mens rea in criminal law.

Arguments in favour of strict liability
-Victim’s groups often favour this
-Focus on the consequences
-Makes the law more certain and saves court time.

Arguments in favour of mens rea
-Moral culpability
-Consequences of being found guilty of criminal actions/ social stigma
-Acknowledges differences between an accident and a deliberate action.

“Big” Mens Rea
-autonomy
-moral culpability
-deterrent (if the person does not know they are committing an offence, how will the
deterrent work?)