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Criminal Law Lecture - Year One, Term 1: Mens Rea and Intention
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Criminal Law Lecture - Year One, Term 1: Mens Rea and Intention and case law
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25th October 2019Criminal Law - Lecture 6: Mens Rea
1. Intention
- The worst kind of mens rea
- Attached to the most serious of crimes including murder and rape
- Greatest culpability and the greatest blameworthiness
- EG Murder:
o Actus reus: the unlawful killing of a ‘person in being’ ‘under the Queen’s
peace’.
o Mens rea: ‘malice aforethought’: intention to kill or intention to cause really
serious [grievous bodily] harm
EG R v Moloney [1985]
Generally, when directing a jury on the mental element of a criminal
offence, the judge should avoid talking about what intent actually
means and should leave it to the jury’s common sense to decide
whether they acted with necessary intent
- Direct Intention
o When D intends all (both actus reus and mens rea) and the result is
something that D desires
- Oblique Intention
o What if I can foresee the consequences of my actions but that is not my aim?
The result that is foreseen as virtually certain to happen, we accept
that it was intended to happen
If person knows that a result will occur because of the things that he’s
doing then he has intention
o D placed a bomb on a passenger plane and intention is to blow up plane
because he wants to claim insurance. When the bomb explodes (pilot dies,
passanger dies) = did D act with the intention to kill or to destroy a few
objects in that plane?
Didn’t have direct intent to kill pilot and passengers, his purpose was
to destroy items
Also true that the deaths of the passengers and pilot was virtually
certain as a result of his conduct
D knew this but decided to still go ahead, this makes it look like he still
had the intention
1. Result is virtually certain (objective)
2. The defendant recognises that it was virtually certain consequence of
D’s conduct (subjective part)
3. And, the jury find that this recognition amounts to an intention (jury
part)
Leading case that defines oblique intention = Woolin [1998]
The jury is not obligated to find intention
The law doesn’t provide a jury with a guideline as to how the jury is to
find intention
Not substantial risk, it’s about virtual certainty
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