Criminal Law

Criminal Law

Referring to the scenario it was initially a criminal act of David who drove over Tom and the consequences began to worsen after that incident. Tom got aggravated with the pain and agony he went through because of David and reacted in a juvenile fashion to protest against David. Now we can see that from Tom's stabbing David the situations are in no one's control and they just happen due to various other confusions and situations. In a chain of reaction scenario there have been a number of accidents. First David succumbed to his death because of the ambulance accident. Tom's desperation led Lewis to an accident and later succumbed due to the infection caused by the accident. Maureen is not to be blamed here because its an accident as Lewis did not even look at Maureen's car and crashed into it. Factual causation is established by asking whether the victim would have died 'but for' the defendant's conduct.

If the answer is 'yes', the defendant did not cause death. However, The 'but for' test is a preliminary filter that eliminates all unconnected acts/events leaving a range of potential legal causes. The general rule of causation is that the defendant is liable for the foreseeable consequences of his actions. Therefore, the victim may break the chain of causation if his reaction to the defendant's initial act is extreme and unforeseeable. The leading case is Blaue [1975] 1 WLR 1411. The defendant stabbed the victim, puncturing her lung. She refused a blood transfusion as it was contrary to her religious beliefs. The defendant was convicted of manslaugher even though the victim had refused treatment that would have saved her life. It was held that the thin-skull rule was not limited to physical conditions but included an individual's psychological make-up and beliefs Again, principles of foreseeability determine whether a naturally-occurring event will amount to an intervening act which breaks the chain of causation. In the example above, a freak wave is an unpredictable event so it is likely to be unforeseeable and amount to an intervening act. Compare this to a situation in which an unconscious victim is left below the tide line and drowns when the tide comes in. This is a wholly foreseeable occurrence so it will not break the chain of causation.

Even though the defendant did not drown the victim directly, he put the victim in a position where it was foreseeable that the victim would drown so liability would be established. Coming onto Maureen's case A duty to act is an onerous burden that is only imposed by statute in a narrow range of circumstances, generally requiring action in situations where inaction would be unreasonable. For example, s. 170(4) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 imposes a duty upon a driver involved in an accident to report it to the police or provide his details to other parties involved. Causation is a two-stage process so establish both factual and legal ...