ELEMENTS OF CRIME

The general principle of criminal law is that a person may not be convicted of a crime unless the
prosecution has proved beyond reasonable doubt;

i) That he had caused a certain event or that responsibility had to be attributed to him for
existence of a certain state of affairs which is forbidden by criminal law

ii) He had a defined state of mind in relation to the causing of the event or the existence of the
state of affairs.
The event/state of affairs is called actus reus while the state of mind is mens rea
It may be absolutely clear that P killed B that he has caused the actus reus but he must be
acquitted if there is reasonable possibility that the killing was accidental. In that case it will not
be proved beyond reasonable doubt that he had the requisite mental element for murder.
In the case of Wellington v DPP, it was held that the jury must acquit the accused even though
they are not satisfied that the defendants story might be true if they think it might reasonably
be true ,they should convict only if satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that it is not true.1

The principle is that a man a man is not a criminally liable for his conduct unless the prescribed
state of mind is also present. In Latin maxim actus non facit reum nisi menis sit rea.The mental
element is traditionally prescribed as mens rea while the other elements are described as the
actus reus. The actus reus amounts to a crime only when accompanied by the requisite mens
rea. To cause actus reus without the requisite mens rea is not a crime but may be an ordinary
innocent act.

In the offence of perjury it consists of making a statement in a judicial proceeding knowing it to

be false or not believing it to be true. Every untrue statement made in a judicial proceeding
amounts to the actus reus of the offence

There are many offences e.g. Possession of prescribed objects and it has always been
recognized that possession consists a mental as well as the physical elements, words like permit,
appropriate, abandons etc fall under this category. Having an offensive weapon in a public place
is an actus reus of an offence, but whether an article is an offensive weapon depends in some
circumstances in the intention which it is carried in the absence of that intention it is not an
offence article as there is no actus reus

Nature of an Actus Reus

It consists of three things;

1. Involves conduct which can either be an act or omission

2. Involves the question of causation; the link between defendants conduct and the result thereof.
3. State of affair offences, which generally involve situations in which a person will incur criminal
liability not as a result of acting voluntary but because they find themselves in a particular
situation which the law defines as being criminal.

VOLUNTARY CONDUCT
In order for a person to be held liable for a crime ,the law requires that he should have acted or
made an omission out of his own choice

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 If a person is compelled by an external force to act there would be evidence of lack of freewill
and the law does not hold accountable a person who is not acting freely

overt act
Conduct for purposes of crime can involve an overt or be achieved by way of omission
An overt act can be seen in instances such as murder by shooting ,cutting or clobbering.
Instances in which a crime is committed by a positive act present little difficulty in establishing
the actus Reus because the act can easily be seen through the naked eye.

Omission
There are some instances however in which a crime is committed by the defendant failing to act
in a particular way. These kind of crimes are said to be crimes that are committed by ways of
omission.
A crime cannot be committed by ‘mere omission’ .The fact that a defendant has not acted and a
criminal result occurs does not mean that the defendant will be responsible for the act unless
the law imposed some obligation on the defendant to act in a particular way that he failed to so
act. If A is sleeping in his house in the middle of the night and hears gunshots and wakes up in
the morning to find a body of a dead person ,A will not be held criminally responsible for that
killing because there is no general obligation on a person to always wake up and check what is
happening outside his house at night .On the other hand if the law imposes an obligation on a
defendant to do something and he fails to do it resulting in a criminal offence then that
defendant will be held liable for having not acted as EXPECTED BY LAW.

Instances in which Omissions Arise Criminal Liability

In relation to crimes which can be committed by way of omission, liability will only arise where
there is an obligation to act. Obligation to act can arise in;

1. Where the obligation to act is imposed by an Act of parliament

An Act of parliament may stipulate that a person in a particular situation should behave or act in a
particular way. If the person does not act as expected thereby making an omission that results in a
criminal offence the person will be held liable on account of omission

Example

The Traffic Act provides that a person driving a motor vehicle on the highway should posses a valid
driving license. A person who drives a car on a highway without a valid driving license would be failing to
do what he is expected to do. In law not being in possession of a valid license is an omission.

2. Public officers

Public officers are public servants. In many cases they have a duty to provide service of one kind or
another to the public .A public officer who fails or neglects a discharge his public duty and causes a
criminal consequence result and he will be held liable for that criminal consequence on the account of
failing to act on the discharge of his duty

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See Republic v Dytham (1979)

Dytham was a police officer on duty he witnessed X being thrown out of a disco and beaten to death by
a bouncer. He did not intervene to stop the bouncer from beating X. X died as a result of the beating.
Dytham was held criminally responsible for his death having failed to intervene as a police officer in
protecting X as was expected of him.

3. Parental family or close relationships

The law assumes that people who are close related owe each other certain moral duties .In respect of
parents, they were generally thought to have moral responsibility to cater for their children. Parental
responsibility as now in many aspects been affirmed in statutory provisions especially under Children’s
Act, before this responsibility was reduced into statutory provisions common law had never the less
established it and a parent who failed to cater for his child needs causing a criminal consequence to
result will be held liable due to his failure to act.

4. Voluntary assumption of responsibility

Cases of voluntary assumption of responsibility are closely linked to those of parental, family and close
relations. In fact the cases that illustrate the latter category are some of the cases which illustrate the
present situation. However, cases of voluntary assumption of responsibility might be much wider and
may involve instances where no real relationship exists.

A person who voluntarily assumes responsibility for another is expected to act in such a way as to
reasonably discharge the duties which arise from his conduct. Acting below the expectation will mean
that should a criminal result occur then the person who assumed responsibility on behalf of another will
be responsible for the consequences.

Republic v Stone & Dobison (1977)

Stone was 67 years he was partially blind and a man of low intelligence , he lived with Dobison 43 years
who was much younger than him.Dobison was described as being not effective and inadequate .Stone
and Dobson allowed X ,Stone’s sister who was suffering from a disease which caused her to generally
keep to herself .At some point Dobson and a neighbor decided to intervene in order to clean X and her
bedroom later stone and Dobson made some effort to contact a doctor to attend to X but the attempts
were not serious enough .During that period there was a social worker who usually visited to check on
Stone’s son who was living with them. They could have easily informed him who could have contacted a
doctor, they decided to give up and X become bedridden and died Stone and Dobson were arrested and
convicted of manslaughter.

5. Contractual obligation

In contracts parties exchange promises which involve obligations on either sides. If a person has
contracted to discharge a particular occasion and fails to do so he will be held criminally responsible for
any failure to discharge. It may be between parties themselves or let to a third party

Republic v Pitwood (1902)

Philip Pitwood was employed by a Railway company to manage a gate at a railway level crossing ,he left
the gate open and X was killed by an on-coming train .Pitwood was held criminally responsible for
manslaughter for having failed to discharge his duty.

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6. Where a defendant gets a dangerous situation and fails to correct it

The law presumes that if a person creates a dangerous situation .He is under an obligation to do
anything under his power to remove the danger.

Republic v Miller

The defendant went into a room to rest. He fell asleep while he was smoking and cigarette butt caused
a fire. He woke up and on seeing the fire he went into the next room and continued to sleep. The fire in
the other room caused damage for which the defendant was charged on the basis that having created a
dangerous situation he was under an obligation to correct it and by walking away he failed to discharge
his obligation. He was charged on indictment with the offence of arson.

7. Cases of special relationship between the defendant and the victim

CAUSATION
In order for a person to be held criminally liable for a crime, it must be shown that it is his conduct that
caused the criminal result.

The defendant’s acts/omissions must be the cause of the result .The issue of causation becomes more
relevant in murder and manslaughter cases

Causation involves two critical elements

 Factual causation

 Legal causation
Factual causation refers to the fact that it is the defendant’s acts/omissions which led to the criminal
result. However, for the defendant to be accountable for that result legal causation must be established

Republic v White (1910)

S put potassium cyanide in a drink with the intention of murdering his mother, shortly afterwards his
mother was found dead,a glass of nectar which was still ¾ full was found beside her ,the medical
evidence produced at the trial showed that she actually died of heart failure and not poisoning. S was
acquitted of the offence of murder but convicted of attempted murder because there was incomplete
Actus reus

Legal causation refers to the fact that the defendant is in fact to blame.

Republic v Dalloway (1847);

Contributory causes

In some cases the criminal result is brought about by other things beyond the defendants conduct;
where there is more than one conduct the court will consider the following;

a) If the other cause is an object then since the object cannot be criminally liable will alone be held
responsible for the result as established in the case of Republic v Martin (1881)

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 b) Where there are conditions pre-existing other causes
Sometimes it is possible that other pre-existing situation or condition also contributes to the result. In
this instance the courts employ the doctrine of the thin skull rule which basically provides that the
defendant must take his victim as he finds him. This means that if you attack another person who is
critically ill and just about to die you will be held responsible for his death even if he was going to die in
the next minute.

 Republic v Dyson, the defendant injured a child who was suffering from meningitis. The
meningitis could itself have caused death of child but the defendant was held to be legal
causation of the child’s death.

c) Another person’s conduct may contribute to a result before it occurs

These instances the defendant cannot shift blame to say that someone else’s conduct contributed to the
result.

In the case of Republic v Benge (1865)

A railway track foreman misread the timetable because hi co-workers had been culpably negligent in
repairing it .The result was that in the process the track was up when the train came and caused death
of X. The defendant was held liable not withstanding that there was another cause.

A) Joint principles

It is possible that two or more persons may commit the same crime, If A, B,C & D attack X with blows
and sticks and X dies. A,B ,C and D will be equally responsible for causing the death of X .They will be
charged for murder .None of them can say it is one of the other caused the death.

Cases of new intervening acts

This is particularly the case where some other cause comes into play other than the defendant’s
conduct.

E.g. what happens in a case in which A assaults B who is then run over by a track. Should A be still said
to be the cause of B

The answer to this question will depend on a number of factors. All in all, what the court has to consider
in dealing with such a case is to determine whether the defendant’s action was the
operating/substantial cause of the dealt or whether some other act was in fact the cause of the death.
Cases of new intervening acts are usually referred to as in the novus actus intervenes

The intervening acts can be of different characteristics.

The “but for” principle

This act cannot be the cause of an event, if the event would have occurred precisely the same way had
the acts never been done, it must be proved that but for this acts of omission the events could not have
occurred.

E.g. if D invited P for dinner P is run over and killed on the way .P would not have died but for the

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invitation ,we would not say that D killed P and D did not cause his death in the eyes of law.

Substantial Cause

It is said that the act must be a substantial cause, this means that the defendant‘s contribution must not
be so minute that it will be ignored under the de minims principle (the cause need not to be substantial
to render the accused guilty)

E.g. D and P are both together as mountaineers, P has fallen over a 1000 feet cliff and dragging D slowly
after him D cuts the rope and P falls to his death five seconds before both P and D had fallen.