The Homicide Act 1957 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Coke

Coke's definition was that murder is when 'a man of sound memory, and of the age of discretion, unlawfully kills within any county of the realm, any reasonable creature under the queens peace, with malice aforethought'.
Broken down, this means that anybody who kills who is not classed as legally insane and who is above the age of 10, during peace time, with an intention to commit the crime will be found guilty.

Answer: Infanticide

Infanticide is found under the Infanticide Act 1938. Although it is unlikely to be included in an exam, it is an important piece of information to remember. Infanticide is when a mother kills her child (usually newborn), normally because of postnatal depression.

Answer: Death due to the defendants' unlawful act

Constructive manslaughter is when death occurs due to the defendant's unlawful actions. R v Mitchell is the leading case for this, when the defendant tried to push in a queue. When a man in the queue objected, Mitchell assaulted him. This caused an elderly woman in the queue to fall, breaking her leg. She died because of her injuries.

Answer: R v Byrne

R v Byrne (1960) was when the defendant was a psychopath who strangled and mutilated a young woman. Diminished responsibility can be found under section 2 of the Homicide Act 1957 and is basically when the defendant is suffering from an abnormality of the mind substantial enough to impair their ability to see a situation in the same way that a reasonable man would.

Answer: There needs to be a mens rea for murder

There only needs to be a mens rea (guilty mind) for the actual unlawful act. The actual chain of causation for constructive manslaughter is that the act must be unlawful, the act must be considered as dangerous on an objective test, the act has to cause death and the defendant must have the mens rea for the dangerous act.

Answer: Duty of Care

R v Adomako (1994) is the leading case for duty of care, which is an example of involuntary manslaughter. The defendant was an anaesthetist who didn't notice that a pipe which was delivering oxygen to the defendant had become detached. Therefore, because of this, the victim died and the defendant was convicted of manslaughter because he owed the victim a duty of care.

Answer: Slow burn

In R v Ahluwalia, the defendant had killed her husband by setting fire to him while he was asleep. This was because she was a victim of domestic violence and finally killed her husband after all of the abuse that he had been giving her. The principle of slow burn was introduced for cases like this, such as R v Thornton, when battered wives didn't have a sudden loss of control, which is what usually constitutes provocation, but had a 'cooling off' period before they murdered their husband.

Answer: Life imprisonment

If the defendant is found guilty of murder, the judge has no choice but to impose a mandatory life sentence. They can then suggest a minimum number of years which have to be served, such as 40. Then, after that amount of years, the case will be reviewed and it will be decided whether they are able to leave prison or serve more of their sentence.

Answer: Intention to cause GBH

Implied malice aforethought means that the defendant had the intention to commit GBH. Express malice aforethought is when the defendant has the intention to commit murder. It is important to remember the differences between these two phrases as you may be asked to define them in the exam.

Answer: R v Tandy

R v Tandy is when the defendant suffered from alcoholism and killed her 11 year old daughter. The other 3 cases refer to provocation:
R v Pearson- the defendant killed his father because of the brutality his father showed towards his younger brother
R v Davies- the defendant caught their spouse committing adultery
R v Doughty- the defendant killed a 17 day old baby because it cried incessantly