CRIMINAL LAW

CRIMINAL LAW



CRIMINAL LAW

Introduction

Referring to the scenario Ann is liable for criminal liability for supplying the drug to Venice and losing her self control in the case of Brian. On the other hand the North London Hospital is liable for keeping Dr. Con on duty for longer than his stipulated time. The situation concerning Brian raises a number of queries in relation to medical negligence. It may be that the hospital has been negligent in administering treatment to Brian. The medical practitioners owe a high duty of care to the patient. Whether a duty of care lives will be determined by established legal principles. It has been said that the reality of duty s based on[a] persevering claiming against his medical skill which had little difficulty in setting up that the defendant is obliged. The test for breach of obligation is determined by reference to such judgements of 'responsible bod[ies] of health opinion. This check arose out of the case of Bolam v Friern Barnet HMC [1957] 2 ALL ER 118 and is known as the Bolam test. The test is as follows: When you get a situation that involves the use of some special skill or competence, then the test as to whether there has been negligence or not is the standard of the ordinary skilled man exercising and professing to have that special skill. If a surgeon failed to assess up to that in any esteem (Clinical Judgement or otherwise), he had been negligent and should be so adjudged (Whitehouse v Jordan [1981] 1 ALL ER 267)

In case of Ann and her criminal liability the circumstances in which the intravenous consumption of a dangerous drug is a substantial cause of the death of the deceased, does the unlawful act of supply of the dangerous drug by the defendant to the deceased per se constitute the actus reus of the offence of manslaughter?'For the causes granted, the response to that question is No. The previous administration display that any unlawful act producing in death would justify a decision of manslaughter but up to date authorities have constrained this form of manslaughter to unlawful acts which are dangerous. In R v Larkin [1943] 1 All ER 217 at 219 Humphreys J, giving the judgment of the court, having advised the delineation of recklessness as a origin of manslaughter, went on:

'Where the proceed which a individual is committed in performing is unlawful, then, if at the identical time it is a unsafe proceed, that is, an proceed which is likely to injure another individual, and rather inadvertently the doer of the proceed determinants the death of that other person by that act, then he is at fault of manslaughter.' In R v Church [1965] 2 All ER 72 at 76, [1966] 1 QB 59 at 70 Edmund Davies J, giving the judgment of the court, considering with an unlawful proceed, said: '… the unlawful proceed should be such as all sober and reasonable persons would inescapably identify must subject ...