1st Year Criminal Law question

jimmygotjimmy

Hi all, I know this is a long shot but I didn't sit my criminal law 1 exam at Christmas due to sporting commitments and am sitting the repeat next week. Really struggling to come up with an answer for the question below. It's probably very easy for anyone who's ever done first year law before! Anyway, if anyone could help me out, please do!

Billy is involved in a fight outside a pub during which mary and Robert are injured. Two passers by notice that Robert looks seriously injured so they decided to take him to tthe nearby hospital. As Robert is quite heavy, and the passers by are a little drunk, they drop him twice on the way. As a result, they decided to call an ambulance that duly arrives and takes Robert to hospital, where he ist reated by an inexperienced doctor with medication that is entirely unsuitable for Robert's type of injury.

Robert dies. Discuss the issues arising.

Naryclaire

jimmygotjimmy wrote: »

Hi all, I know this is a long shot but I didn't sit my criminal law 1 exam at Christmas due to sporting commitments and am sitting the repeat next week. Really struggling to come up with an answer for the question below. It's probably very easy for anyone who's ever done first year law before! Anyway, if anyone could help me out, please do!

Billy is involved in a fight outside a pub during which mary and Robert are injured. Two passers by notice that Robert looks seriously injured so they decided to take him to tthe nearby hospital. As Robert is quite heavy, and the passers by are a little drunk, they drop him twice on the way. As a result, they decided to call an ambulance that duly arrives and takes Robert to hospital, where he ist reated by an inexperienced doctor with medication that is entirely unsuitable for Robert's type of injury.

Robert dies. Discuss the issues arising.

Read up on R v. Cato (I think), general causation, thin skull rule, vicarious liability. Maybe bring up the need of a concurrent actus reus and mens rea. This is all in your book, and would have been outlined on your notes. Also, don't do repeats unless because of illness etc again, they are a pain in the arse and tend to be stickier. This year's grade doesn't matter beyond a pass, but the rest do.

cup of tea

causation the main point in the above example to give you a very brief answer. You must show there is a casual link between the first act(the injury as a result of the fight) and subsequent acts(the being dropped and the bad treatment).i.e the subsequent acts would not have occured if were not for the first act----> if it were not for the assault, the victim would not be dead.
If you can develop the point that there was not a casual link then the person who committed the assault would not be responsible.
As the above poster says, the thin skull rule also comes into play and more.

tribblethrou

Principal issue is the criminal culpability of the original attacker and whether the interventions of the other parties have broken the chain of causation to beat a murder rap.