SQE1 Assessment Specification Summary Notes: Criminal Law
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Revise SQE Criminal Law
This is a summary document in a form of a table which covers every point in the SQE Assessment Specification for Criminal Law.
I passed the SQE exams with the score of 74% in July 2023.
Summary prepared based on BPP & Revise SQE materials (so no need to buy additional textbooks - I already di...
Definition of the offence:
SQE Spec Key points
Actus Reus
Conduct + Result + Circumstances + Omissions
Result crimes = factual causation + legal causation
AR must be voluntary (automatism – D conduct MUST be voluntary, if it is not – defence of
automatism)
Omissions – D cannot be criminally liable for failing to act
- Statutory duty
- Special relationships – doctors, parents, spouses
- Voluntary assumption – liable if you fail to carry out that duty
- Contractual
- Creating a dangerous situation
- Public office
Duty doesn’t have to be established by using only one category
Factual causation – but for test (but for the acts or omissions of the accused, the relevant
consequence would not have occurred in the way that it did) = if you eliminate the act of D would
the prohibited harm have occurred anyway?
Legal causation – D is operating and substantial cause (contribution cannot be de minimis but
need not be the only factor).
- D need only be a more than minimal cause of the prohibited result
- D need not be the only cause of the result
- D must be the operating cause (D stabs V but then other factors – D stabbing still the
operating cause)
Novus actus interveniens?
- Medical negligence (treatment that is merely negligent will not break the chain) must
be an independent act that is so potent that D's contribution is insignificant. Treatment
'so overwhelming' that it makes the original injury 'part of the history'
- Acts of the victim: 'fright or flight'
- Acts of the victim: 'refusal of treatment' – Ds must take their victims as they find them
(both mind and bod)
- Where V causes or contributes to his own injuries or his own demise this may be
attributable to D if V's actions were proportionate to the threat posed
- Acts of the victim: suicide
- R v Pagett the chain of causation will be broken by a free, deliberate and informed act
of a third party.
- Acts of God
The ‘reasonably foreseeable’ test is the one applied when considering whether acts of the victim
will break the chain of causation.
Mens Rea
Intention
- Direct Intention = the consequence is what D aims to happen It is the purpose or
objective of D's act (subjective)
- Oblique intention = consequence is not D's purpose but rather a side effect. Outcome
was virtually certain (objective test) and D appreciated this (subjective).Very rarely used.
Overall more subjective.
, - Transferred malice – when D's MR is transferred from the intended harm to the actual
harm
Only foresight by D of a virtual certainty will suffice. Where result seen as a possible, probable or
even highly probable consequence, D may be reckless but he does not intend to bring about that
consequence.
Foresight of a virtually certain result is NOT equivalent to intention – only evidence of intention
jury are not bound to find that D intended a result that was virtually certain. Foresight of a
virtually certain result DOES NOT MEAN jury MUST find that D intended a result that was virtually
certain.
The woman’s direct intention, her aim and purpose, is to destroy the new coffee shop. The jury
will be asked to consider oblique intent.
Recklessness – test in R v G
- First part: subjective (is D aware of the existence of a risk?)
- Second part: objective and requires a consideration of whether the risk seen by the
defendant was, objectively, an unreasonable one to take in the circumstances known to
the defendant. (Does D unreasonably take that risk?)
Knowledge and belief (the risk must be seen by D = subjective test) + was the risk unjustifiable
(objective)
Dishonesty
Negligence (only in gross neg manslaughter)
Coincidence of MR
and AR The continuing act theory = where AR can be satisfied by a continuing act it is sufficient that D has
MR at some point while that act is continuing (although D did not initially have MR when
committing AR, he did when he failed to move the car)
One transaction principle = an offence may be committed through a series of acts and D may not
have the prescribed MR when committing each act. Where this is the case, sufficient that D has
MR at some point during that series of acts.
The continuing act theory cannot be used as the woman’s act of hitting the pedestrian had
finished long before the woman intended the pedestrian’s death.
The series of acts theory cannot be used as this is not a case where the woman initially acts with
the mens rea and a later act designed to cover up the first act causes death.
The woman had only done one act and she did not have the mens rea at that time. Formulating a
plan to smother the pedestrian constituted the mens rea of murder, intention to kill, regardless of
whether she took any steps to put her plan into action. The actus reus did not take place at the
time of the pedestrian’s death.
BUT: there are situations where it is in IOJ that D has AR and MR for the offence even though
these elements do not exist precisely at the same moment.
Liability for murder through transferred malice
- Transferred malice only if it's the same offence
- No double or general transfer of MR
, Core principles of criminal liability
SQE Spec Key points
offences assault and
against the battery Assault
person:
AR
- Apprehension (expect – does not mean fear/words alone and silence is enough.
Words can however negate an assault)
- A thing said is also a thing done
- Immediate – some time not excluding the immediate future
- Unlawful – no defence available
- Personal violence - There is no requirement that the handler be able to carry
out his threat. Where the victim does apprehend immediate and unlawful
personal violence, the violence apprehended need not be the same violence as
that threatened.
MR
- Intention or recklessness as to causing the victim to apprehend immediate and
unlawful personal violence
Battery
AR
- Actual application (direct/indirect/omission)
- Of unlawful – absence of any defence (implied consent – common everyday
things e.g. being on a packed train/mosh pit)
- Force – includes merest of touches, doesn't need to be hostile, no requirement
to prove any injury has been suffered
MR
- Intention or recklessness as to applying unlawful force
A direct battery would be the boy hitting the art teacher or hitting the art teacher with
the bucket.
When a man hits woman and woman drops the baby, man applied battery to the baby
as well – his application of force to the woman had resulted in force being applied to
the baby
When D blocked exit door and shouted fire – liable for battery when ppl were crushed
s. 47 Offences
Against the Assault occasioning ABH – 'aggravated assault'
Person Act 1861
AR
- Assault or battery
- Occasioning (normal rules of factual and legal causation)
- ABH (fact and degree – any hurt or injury calculated to interfere with the
health or comfort of the victim. The injury (although no need to be permanent)
should not be so trivial as to be wholly insignificant. E.g. bruising, being
knocked-out
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