Kings College London

This paper is part of an examination of the College counting towards

the award of a degree. Examinations are governed by the College
Regulations under the authority of the Academic Board.

LLB EXAMINATION
4FFLK903 CRIMINAL LAW
SUMMER 2015
TIME ALLOWED: 2 HOURS

ANSWER TWO OF THE FOLLOWING FOUR QUESTIONS.

THIS IS A CLOSED BOOK EXAMINATION.

IN THE EXAM YOU WILL BE PROVIDED WITH SOME RELEVANT STATUTES.

PLEASE ENSURE YOU WRITE THE NUMBER OF THE QUESTION YOU

ARE ANSWERING ON EACH PAGE AND THE EXAM COVER SHEET.
PLEASE WRITE LEGIBLY.
DO NOT REMOVE THIS EXAM PAPER FROM THE EXAMINATION ROOM
TURN OVER WHEN INSTRUCTED
2015 Kings College London

4FFLK903 SUMMER 2015

1. Steve runs a business. His profits and lifestyle have in recent years
been badly hit by the success of a newer rival business run by Moz, and
he starts to consider ways of bringing Moz down. Steve learns from
Sleuth, a private investigator, that Moz is having a secret affair with
Carol, the wife of Mozs best friend, Dan. Sleuth also reports that Moz
and Dan share a passion for mountaineering and once a month or so,
the two of them attempt a challenging climb together.
Steve tells Dan that Moz is sleeping with Carol and when Dan refuses to
believe him, shows him evidence caught on film by Sleuth. Dan
becomes beside himself with anger. Steve offers to introduce Dan to
someone who can advise [him] what to do. Dan meets with Steve and
Trev. Steve tells Dan, Trev will get you a knife that is perfect for
killing a man cleanly. You could do it when you next go climbing with
Moz; get him in the tent at night or something. You can disguise the
knife as part of the gear you need. Steve adds to Trev, take the knife
to Dans house tomorrow, to which Trev agrees. At the end of the
conversation Dan nods and says to Steve and Trev, Yes, I think we all
understand each other. Unknown to Steve, Dan and Trev, the
conversation is caught on camera by Sleuth.
The next day Trev fails to turn up, but Sleuth goes to see Dan and
shows him more footage of Carol and Moz in intimate moments.
Unseen by Dan, Sleuth slips a knife into Dans rucksack and says
goodbye.
Dan and Moz set off the next morning. Dan had left behind the knife
Sleuth put in his rucksack in favour of his own knife, having concluded
that the knife he mysteriously found in his rucksack was one Moz would
realise was not meant for mountaineering.
After the first days climbing, Dan has a sleepless night in which he
does a lot of soul searching. He gets up early and leaves the tent and
phones Carol. He tells her that he knows about her affair with Moz,
that at first he was angry, but has now thought hard about it and he
wants to talk about the matter in a calm fashion with her and Moz
when he and Moz have returned home from their climb. He concludes
the call by saying: Ive come to my senses I was going to do
something really crazy! I love you. It will work out.

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4FFLK903 SUMMER 2015

The next day Dan and Moz attempt an especially difficult climb on the
Ben Nevis Mountain. Dan goes first as usual and Moz is attached to him
by a rope. Moz falls into difficulties and entirely loses his footing and
falls off so that he is dangling in mid-air, with only the rope connecting
him to Dan preventing him from continuing his fall to the bottom of
the mountain. Dan holds onto the rope with all his strength for a
considerable period, but steadily feels himself weaken, aware that
eventually he will be pulled down together with Moz to a certain
death. He can make out Moz shouting from below, cut the rope, save
yourself. Eventually as he feels his final strength disappearing Dan
cuts the rope. Mozs dead body is found a day later by a search party
and Dan is rescued by a helicopter. When questioned, Trev says he
missed the meeting he was supposed to attend because hed changed
his mind about supplying anything to a ridiculous scheme he never
believed could succeed anyway.
Consider the criminal liability of Steve, Dan, Sleuth and Trev.

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4FFLK903 SUMMER 2015

2. Sally decided to burn her own house down. Her house is semidetached, making up half of a building, the other half of which is
occupied by the four members of the Jenkins family. Sally had become
depressed about the overwhelming number of repairs the house
needed, most of which she could not currently afford. She figured that
the insurance company would pay out to rebuild the house if it were to
have an accident and burn down.
Sally began by writing a letter to the insurance company saying her
house had burned down for a reason she could not fathom, an
electricity fault, a gas leak, who knows? She gave the letter together
with two others related to her work to her secretary instructing her
Ive prepared these three letters. Please put the right postage on
them but dont post them until I tell you to, please, which Ill do by email. Next, she gave the Jenkins family four tickets to go to the
funfair at the seaside the following Saturday.
First thing on Saturday, Mrs Jenkins told Sally that only she and one of
her children would be going to the seaside since her other child had
taken ill and Mr Jenkins would stay home to look after her. Sally
decided to go ahead with her plan anyway, telling herself that she
would call the fire brigade comfortably before the fire could spread
next door. She reasoned that any risk to her neighbours was
vanishingly small, especially as Mr Jenkins, a highly responsible adult,
was present.
Sally turned on all the gas on the hob of her cooker, lit the gas and
threw newspaper onto the flames intending that the wooden shelf
units would catch light and spread the flames to the rest of the house.
However, despite continually lighting newspaper, she could not get the
wooden units to catch light; the newspaper repeatedly burned itself
out. Eventually, overcome by the gas, Sally fled the building. Mr
Jenkins had been out in his familys garden at the time and was
unaffected, but Joanna, his daughter (aged 11), who was in bed,
breathed in gas fumes that had escaped from next door and became
sick, vomiting for around 15 minutes.

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4FFLK903 SUMMER 2015

Although Joanna suffered no further ill effects of the gas fumes, Mr
and Mrs Jenkins remain very concerned about her. She has turned from
a hardworking and happy girl into a lethargic and moody one, who
refuses to go to school. Psychologists have reported that Joanna is
constantly fearful and subject to panic. They believe she was
traumatised by the dishonesty of Sally, an adult she had adored and
looked up to.
Advise Sally on her potential criminal liability.
3. Barney, a kitchen fitter by trade, made two bookings at the Strand
Palace Hotel in London, the first for the night of 15 April as an
overnight stop on his way to Birmingham, the second for his return
journey for the night of 21 April, on his way back. On the 15th, he
realised that if he paid his bill for the first night immediately on
checking out the next day he would be short of cash while in
Birmingham. On checking out, therefore, he spoke to the hotel
manager, telling her that he was clean out of cash and in a hurry. The
manager agreed that he could defer his payment until his return stay
on his way back from Birmingham. Soon after, he heard news of the
cancellation of a big contract and so resolved neither to return to the
Strand Palace Hotel, nor to pay his outstanding bill. He phoned the
hotel and left a message on the answering machine cancelling his
booking for 21 April.
While in Birmingham, Barney went to see a potential client interested
in having a kitchen fitted in his house. The client suggested that the
sale should be made in cash off the books at around 20% under
Barneys price (the 20% covering value added tax). Barney had never
agreed before to do work that he would not be declaring on his annual
tax return, thinking it a cheat to do so, but he decided to do so on
this occasion. He had many reasons for this, he told himself: no one
else seemed to think avoiding value added tax was cheating, all the
other kitchen fitters he knew were doing this, all clients seemed to
think it fair enough and, finally, he desperately needed a sale.

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4FFLK903 SUMMER 2015

Back home at Barneys house, Bella, Barneys wife, was working on a

daily basis as a carer for Doris, for which she was paid monthly by
direct debit. Doris (aged 84) was frail and often confused. Bella
successfully applied for a local council grant to pay for a stairlift to be
fitted in Doriss house on the basis that Doris could not climb the
stairs, except with extreme discomfort. Bella phoned Stan after
finding his number by googling Stairlift fitters. Though describing
himself in his online advertisement as a stairlift fitter Stan explained
to Bella and Doris that he had never fitted a stairlift before. He asked
for a price that he (rightly) suspected was nearly four times higher
than the usual rate charged by experienced stairlift fitters, to which
Bella and Doris immediately agreed. However, a week before the lift
was due to be installed, Doris returned from an operation at the
hospital with her mobility much improved and with the advice of her
doctor to climb the stairs at every opportunity in order to exercise her
legs.
Bella decided to say nothing in case Doriss condition
deteriorated again, had the stairlift installed and sent the bill to the
local council, which it duly paid.
Doris had an extensive collection of jewellery which she had often told
Bella would be left in her will to Anita, Doriss daughter, who lived in
New Zealand. On the 21st April as Bella was going home, Doris said
Id like to give you something for payment and pressed the box with
her entire collection of jewellery onto Bella. Bella said no I couldnt
accept that. But Doris insisted, saying I need to pay you. Bella took
the jewellery in order to think about whether to keep it or not,
eventually taking it to a pawn shop, where she was given a 4,000
loan, which she was to repay in six months time in exchange for the
return of the jewellery.
Advise Barney, Bella and Stan on any potential criminal liability.

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4FFLK903 SUMMER 2015

4. After a series of brushes with the law in relation to his driving, Rob has
just begun a six month period disqualified from driving. One Monday
morning, on hearing that there was a strike on the Underground, he
decided to risk it and drive his car to work. Rob finds the motorway
is extremely crowded on the lanes going into the city centre, although
nearly empty in the lanes going in the opposite direction out of the
city. For a seemingly endless period, Robs car is either stationary in
the traffic or moving no faster than 5 mph. All of a sudden, a car
travelling in the opposite direction appears in view. The car is
travelling extremely fast and very erratically and is being driven by
Dwain, who has consumed large quantities of heroin. As Robs car was
moving at around 4 mph in the near gridlocked traffic, Dwains car
veers off the opposite lane of the motorway and crashes at great speed
into Robs car.
Miraculously Rob only suffers a few minor cuts and bruises, but Dwain
is very badly hurt indeed. Dwain is cut out of his wrecked car and, still
conscious but in agony, put in an ambulance. Inside the ambulance
Dwain is able to make out a supply of drug X, something he has often
purchased illegally, and he asks Patrick, the paramedic, to give him a
dose to relieve his pain as he does not believe what Patrick has already
given him will be effective. Patrick tries to calm him telling him he
must wait until they get to the hospital. He explained that he (Patrick)
is not authorised to give out that drug except on the instruction of a
qualified doctor and that it would be extremely dangerous for him to
give it to him without understanding its effects.
After repeated
requests from Dwain, Patrick finally relents and gives him a dose of
Drug X. The drug has the effect of calming Dwain, but a little after
arriving at the hospital, Dwain dies. Experts agree that Dwain had no
more than a 10% chance of surviving the car crash, but that 10% chance
completely vanished on his ingesting Drug X in combination with the
heroin already in his system (as a suitably qualified doctor would have
immediately recognised).

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4FFLK903 SUMMER 2015

After having been arrested and released on bail and on hearing the
news of Dwains death, Rob is highly depressed. He took some of the
valium that his girlfriend had on prescription in her bathroom in order
to calm himself down and since his girlfriend was abroad, decided to
go out for a drink on his own. In the bar, there was a large crowd
waiting to be served and Rob is continually poked in the ribs by Gail
behind him in the queue who repeatedly says move forward, we
havent got all night! After having been poked in the ribs for the
fourth time in two minutes, Rob angrily swings round planning to shout
at Gail and maybe frighten her a bit. As a result of the valium,
however, his movement is rather faster than he realised it would be
and his face smashes into Gails, breaking her nose. It emerges that in
the couple of hours prior to Rob and Gails altercation, Gail had
consumed 10 gin and tonics and 5 large glasses of wine.
Advise Rob, Gail and Patrick on their potential criminal liability.
(Note: under 3ZB of the Road Traffic Act 1988 A person is guilty
of an offence ...if he causes the death of another person by
driving a motor vehicle on a road and, at the time when he is
driving, the circumstances are such that he is...driving otherwise
than in accordance with a license [or] driving while disqualified
[or] using a motor vehicle while uninsured or unsecured against
third party risks. No further knowledge of the provisions of
the Road Traffic Act is expected for the purposes of answering
this question.)

Final page of questions

Kings College London

This paper is part of an examination of the College counting towards
the award of a degree. Examinations are governed by the College
Regulations under the authority of the Academic Board.

LLB EXAMINATION
4FFLK903 CRIMINAL LAW
MAY 2015
TIME ALLOWED: 2 HOURS

PLEASE ENSURE YOU WRITE THE NUMBER OF THE QUESTION YOU

ARE ANSWERING ON EACH PAGE AND THE EXAM COVER SHEET.
PLEASE WRITE LEGIBLY.
DO NOT REMOVE THIS EXAM PAPER FROM THE EXAMINATION ROOM
TURN OVER WHEN INSTRUCTED
2015 Kings College London