Muhammed Awais
P3 M3 – Unlawful Act Manslaughter
In this assignment I will be explaining what unlawful act manslaughter is and how it is used. Unlawful act
manslaughter, this is when the defendant kills anyone due to his carelessness. The maximum sentence for this is
life imprisonment, it is at the judge’s discretion to decide what sentence they would like to pass.
There are 4 steps which will need to be figured out before the judges can charge anyone with these charges,
firstly they will need to prove that the defendant must have committed an unlawful act. For example in the case
of R V Lamb, in this case the defendant and victim were friends they were playing with a revolver gun and they
didn’t know how to operate the gun, the gun was loaded at the time. While playing the defendant put the gun to
the head of the defendant and he had shot. The defendant didn’t know what he was doing at the time. In the
case, Lamb wasn’t found guilty of manslaughter as he didn’t commit any crime. Also another case is R V Lowe,
in this case the defendant of low intellect had neglected a 9 year old baby who died of dehydration, in this case
the defendant wasn’t found guilty as their needed to be an act or omission but there was neither in this case.
Another case is the case of R V Newbury and Jones, in this case the defendant had thrown some stone slabs of
the railway bridge where he was standing at the time. The rocks had hit the train and the train guard who was on
the train had died after being hit. In the case the defendant was found guilty, this is because dangerousness is a
test which is tested objectively. In the objective test it isn’t whether the defendant realised what he was going to
do is dangerous but if a reasonable man would realise that it could cause harm, no matter how slight the harm
can be. Also another case is the case of R V Good fellow, in this case the defendant was being harassed in his
council home and he knew that the council wouldn’t rehouse him so he lighted his house up to make it look like
his harassers did it. His son, son’s girlfriend and wife had died in the house. In this case the defendant was found
guilty of manslaughter as the defendant only needs to cause the death and the illegal act doesn’t need to be
directed at the victim. So in the case of Adam, Adam had committed an assault as he has caused his ex-
girlfriend to apprehend the immediate application of unlawful force. And it looks like it was his main aim
and purpose to do so. He banging on the door is an act.
The second step is to do the objective test and the unlawful act must be dangerous in the objective test. This is
when the court will ask the question whether the act committed was a reasonable thing this is compared to an
ordinary person. This isn’t the subjective test as in that test the defendant is tried on two accounts firstly if the
crime which occurred, would’ve occurred if the defendant was to think and then if a reasonable person would
have done the act. In the case of Church, the victim said that the defendant couldn’t satisfy her sexually and he
also slapped the defendant. A fight occurred and in the fight the defendant had made the victim be unconscious.
The defendant tried to wake the victim up for more than half an hour and she didn’t respond so the defendant
threw the victim into the river. When the post mortem was done on the victim they found that she had died from
drowning. He was convicted of manslaughter as the judge made a few mistakes when he was directing the jury.
When he appealed, the judge had said that the conviction of manslaughter was safe even though there was a lot
of errors which were made by the judge towards the jury. Not all reasonable people will need to recognise that
the act poses a risk of some harm and certainly not death. For example in the case of R V Mitchell, in the case
the defendant was trying to jump a queue in a post office. The elderly man became angry when he saw this and
became angry, he then approached him and challenged him. The defendant had punched the old man and pushed
him and then hell fell onto the other people in the queue of who one of them was an old lady which fell down
and broke her leg the women had later died in hospital. The defendant was convicted of manslaughter. The
defendant had appealed and the appeal was dismissed as the judge said that there wasn’t any need for the
unlawful act to be directed at the victim. So in the case of Adam, a reasonable would’ve known that if he
was banging and shouting on their girlfriends door there is a chance that the girlfriend would suffer some
harm however slight. A reasonable person would realise the risk of some harm.
The third step is that the defendant’s act must have caused the death of the victim. The unlawful act of the
defendant must cause death and to prove this the court will need to prove factual and legal causation. The
factual causation is tested via using the but for test for example in the case of white. But the legal causation, a
judge in the case of Pagett said that the defendant’s actions do not need to be the sole cause of main cause of the
consequence. It must show that the defendant had made significant contribution to the consequence. And in the
case of cheesier significant was said to mean more than negligible. For example, in the case of Shohid which
was a fight with a defendant when he had asked a few gang members for a cigar. Instead of giving the figurate
they fought him and he fell onto the train tracks along with one of their members, the gang member which fell
P3 M3 – Unlawful Act Manslaughter
In this assignment I will be explaining what unlawful act manslaughter is and how it is used. Unlawful act
manslaughter, this is when the defendant kills anyone due to his carelessness. The maximum sentence for this is
life imprisonment, it is at the judge’s discretion to decide what sentence they would like to pass.
There are 4 steps which will need to be figured out before the judges can charge anyone with these charges,
firstly they will need to prove that the defendant must have committed an unlawful act. For example in the case
of R V Lamb, in this case the defendant and victim were friends they were playing with a revolver gun and they
didn’t know how to operate the gun, the gun was loaded at the time. While playing the defendant put the gun to
the head of the defendant and he had shot. The defendant didn’t know what he was doing at the time. In the
case, Lamb wasn’t found guilty of manslaughter as he didn’t commit any crime. Also another case is R V Lowe,
in this case the defendant of low intellect had neglected a 9 year old baby who died of dehydration, in this case
the defendant wasn’t found guilty as their needed to be an act or omission but there was neither in this case.
Another case is the case of R V Newbury and Jones, in this case the defendant had thrown some stone slabs of
the railway bridge where he was standing at the time. The rocks had hit the train and the train guard who was on
the train had died after being hit. In the case the defendant was found guilty, this is because dangerousness is a
test which is tested objectively. In the objective test it isn’t whether the defendant realised what he was going to
do is dangerous but if a reasonable man would realise that it could cause harm, no matter how slight the harm
can be. Also another case is the case of R V Good fellow, in this case the defendant was being harassed in his
council home and he knew that the council wouldn’t rehouse him so he lighted his house up to make it look like
his harassers did it. His son, son’s girlfriend and wife had died in the house. In this case the defendant was found
guilty of manslaughter as the defendant only needs to cause the death and the illegal act doesn’t need to be
directed at the victim. So in the case of Adam, Adam had committed an assault as he has caused his ex-
girlfriend to apprehend the immediate application of unlawful force. And it looks like it was his main aim
and purpose to do so. He banging on the door is an act.
The second step is to do the objective test and the unlawful act must be dangerous in the objective test. This is
when the court will ask the question whether the act committed was a reasonable thing this is compared to an
ordinary person. This isn’t the subjective test as in that test the defendant is tried on two accounts firstly if the
crime which occurred, would’ve occurred if the defendant was to think and then if a reasonable person would
have done the act. In the case of Church, the victim said that the defendant couldn’t satisfy her sexually and he
also slapped the defendant. A fight occurred and in the fight the defendant had made the victim be unconscious.
The defendant tried to wake the victim up for more than half an hour and she didn’t respond so the defendant
threw the victim into the river. When the post mortem was done on the victim they found that she had died from
drowning. He was convicted of manslaughter as the judge made a few mistakes when he was directing the jury.
When he appealed, the judge had said that the conviction of manslaughter was safe even though there was a lot
of errors which were made by the judge towards the jury. Not all reasonable people will need to recognise that
the act poses a risk of some harm and certainly not death. For example in the case of R V Mitchell, in the case
the defendant was trying to jump a queue in a post office. The elderly man became angry when he saw this and
became angry, he then approached him and challenged him. The defendant had punched the old man and pushed
him and then hell fell onto the other people in the queue of who one of them was an old lady which fell down
and broke her leg the women had later died in hospital. The defendant was convicted of manslaughter. The
defendant had appealed and the appeal was dismissed as the judge said that there wasn’t any need for the
unlawful act to be directed at the victim. So in the case of Adam, a reasonable would’ve known that if he
was banging and shouting on their girlfriends door there is a chance that the girlfriend would suffer some
harm however slight. A reasonable person would realise the risk of some harm.
The third step is that the defendant’s act must have caused the death of the victim. The unlawful act of the
defendant must cause death and to prove this the court will need to prove factual and legal causation. The
factual causation is tested via using the but for test for example in the case of white. But the legal causation, a
judge in the case of Pagett said that the defendant’s actions do not need to be the sole cause of main cause of the
consequence. It must show that the defendant had made significant contribution to the consequence. And in the
case of cheesier significant was said to mean more than negligible. For example, in the case of Shohid which
was a fight with a defendant when he had asked a few gang members for a cigar. Instead of giving the figurate
they fought him and he fell onto the train tracks along with one of their members, the gang member which fell
