English Criminal Law/Actus reus

Actus reus

Actus reus refers to the physical parts of the crime (the guilty act). The actus reus elements of a crime can be categorised into three types: conduct; consequences; and circumstances.

As an example, consider the definition of theft stated in the introduction. The actus reus elements of theft are "appropriation" of "property" that "belongs to another". As can be seen, there is no requirement of a consequence - so it doesn't matter whether, for example, the accused actually managed to get away with the property - theft is committed if there is an appropriation of property belonging to another together with the required mens rea elements. An example of a crime which does require a consequence is murder - murder is not committed unless the accused's conduct results in a death.

Causation For any defendant to be convicted of any crime, causation must be proved. In practice, this is rarely demonstrated since most causation is obvious and uncontested. If A punches B in the face, there is no necessity for a legal argument to prove that the actual bodily harm suffered by B was caused by A. However, in some cases, it may be questioned whether the acts of the accused did cause the result.

When considering causation, there are five tests to determine whether causation can be established. Two of these are the tests of factual causation (did the conduct actually cause the result?) and the other three are tests of legal causation (is the defendant to be held legally responsible for the consequences?).

Factual Causation The "But-For" Test The first test of factual causation poses the question: “ But for the actions of the defendant, would the result have occurred? ” Paraphrasing, the court is generally trying to discover whether the consequence would have resulted regardless of the accused's actions. If the answer to this question is no, and the result could only have occurred due to the actions of the defendant, factual causation is one step towards established. If the answer is yes, and the result would have occurred anyway, then factual causation is not established.

A case demonstrating this is R v White 1910. The defendant laced his mother's drink of milk with poison, however she did not drink it, but died later from a different cause (later revealed to be a heart attack). Since his mother would have died regardless of the fact that he poisoned her drink, White was acquitted of murder. Factual causation had not been established.

The "De-Minimis" Principle The second test for factual causation is the requirement that the defendant's actions must be more than a minimal cause of the result. An example could be that A pushes B into a main road. C is driving towards B at great speed and B jumps to the kerb and slips, spraining his ankle. A cannot fairly be held liable for the spraining of B's ankle. Though his actions were a direct cause of the result, they were no more than a minimal result.

A case where the De-Minimus case was used to establish factual causation is R v. Pagett, 1983. Here, Pagett was escaping some armed police whilst also firing back at them. By trying to escape and hide from then he ran up to his flat where his heavily pregnant girlfriend was and used her as a shield against the police. He was found to have factually caused the girls death, as his actions of firing on the police were more than a minimal cause of her death.

NB: R v Pagett 1983, is also a case used to demonstrate the "But For" Test.

Legal Causation The three tests for establishing legal causation are the 'Thin Skull' test, Operative and Significant Cause, and Novus Actus Interveniens. The "Thin-Skull" test Operative and Significant Cause Novus Actus Interveniens

Less a test, and closer to a principle, the "thin skull" test merely applies the doctrine that a defendant must "take his victim as he finds him". The test is called the 'thin skull' test because of the standard example quoted, though it is not known whether the phrase is coined from an actual case. Where a victim, A, suffers from a condition which renders him more susceptible to injury than a non-suffering counterpart, B, he should not suffer unequal protection from the law.

Where a victim has a 'thin skull' or other condition or circumstance, it may be the case that he suffers an injury that a person not affected by such a condition would not suffer. Were a defendant to strike someone around the head, for example, a victim with a thin skull may suffer brain damage while the average person might suffer no injury at all. The thin-skull test seeks to attach liability to those defendants who, in terms of public policy, should not escape liability based on the individual's characteristics.

In R v Blaue 1975, the defendant, who had entered the victim's house and stabbed her four times, was found guilty of murder when the victim, a Jehovah's witness, refused a blood transfusion which would have saved her life. Though evidence showed that the wounds would not have otherwise proved fatal, Blaue was convicted on the grounds that he had caused the victim's death.

Purely a matter of law? As outlined above causation in criminal law is understood as a chain of events linked to each other - it is a link between the defendant’s act and the consequence which occurred as a result of that act. As causation represents an integral element of result crimes - the one to be proved, the law developed certain tests to establish it. They represent a two-stage process or two tests to be applied in succession. The first test is factual causation and the second one is legal causation.

Thus, it is seen from the outset that causation is effectively a mixture being a question of fact and a question of law at the same time or, in other words, causation is a factual issue to begin the analysis and a legal one to finalise the findings. At the same time, it is arguable that legal causation itself is a facade of a chosen approach to allocating blame. Indeed, it is submitted that criminal law itself is a mechanism for allocating blame. In turn, allocation of blame is a process which is almost inevitably based on moral and policy considerations.

Liability for omissions Generally, the law of England imposes no criminal liability for omissions - there is no general duty to act. If, for example, a person walking along the beach one day sees a drowning child in the water, he is under no legal duty to intervene, even if it would be easy for him to do so.

There are a number of exceptions to this rule, however. The first of these are that there is a recognisable duty to act imposed by law where there exists a special relationship between the parties, such as a parent's duty to care for his/her child.

A duty can arise through contractual relationships (R v Pittwood 1902), or can also arise through one's own conduct. For example, in R v Miller 1982, the defendant was held liable for the criminal damage to a building caused by fire. Miller, a vagrant, fell asleep in a disused property and dropped a lit cigarette onto a mattress. When he awoke to find the mattress smouldering, he simply moved to another room. Legally, he was bound to act since the dangerous circumstance was of his own creation, and his omission was therefore criminal. Criminal liability for omissions, has in the past, been held to include doctors who have not acted after taking the Hippocratic Oath.

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