UG LAW COURSEWORK QUESTION

Semester 2, 2021/2

LAW1030 CRIMINAL LAW II

Module Convenor: Dr Emily Finch

Students should answer one of the questions in no more than 2000 words (excluding
footnotes and bibliography). Please note that the footnotes must only contain references
and citations. No additional words in the footnotes will be read or marked.

OSCOLA referencing must be used and should include pinpoints where quotations or
specific points from case law or secondary source material is included. Failure to
acknowledge sources fully and correctly may give rise to concerns about academic
misconduct. Please check with the module leader if you are unsure about any aspect of
referencing.

This assignment carries 80% of the marks for the module.

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QUESTION 1

Gerhard had intended to run a half marathon to raise money for The Sunflower Trust and set up a
bucket in his workplace to collect cash donations. It was raining on the day of the run so he decided
not to take part but kept the cash donations to spend on repairs to his car. His employer found out
what he had done and Gerhard was sacked from his job.

Gerhard decides to cheer himself up by paying a surprise visit to his brother Shishkin in his new home.
He has no money so he pretends to be asleep during the train journey so that he cannot be asked for
his ticket. It is raining heavily when Gerhard arrives at his destination and he is cold and wet by the
time he has walked to Shishkin’s house. There is no answer when he rings the doorbell so Gerhard
goes into the garden shed and rummages around looking for the spare key that he thinks Shishkin
keeps there but cannot find it. Gerhard waits several hours in the cold and dark until, assuming that
Shishkin is away for the weekend, he uses a large stone to smash the glass in the back door to gain
entry to the house. He thinks that Shishkin will not mind as long as he pays to replace the window.
Once inside, Gerhard helps himself to some food from the refrigerator and falls asleep on the sofa.

Unbeknownst to Gerhard, he has broken into the wrong house. While he is asleep, the owner of the
house, Dr Sanderson, returns home with his ten-year-old daughter, Honeysuckle. Dr Sanderson sees
Gerhard asleep on the sofa and thinks he is a burglar so he tells his daughter to wait in the kitchen.
Furious, Dr Sanderson grabs Gerhard by the shoulder and shouts ‘how dare you break into my house.
I’ll make you sorry that you came into my home’. Gerhard wakes with a start and fights back, grabbing
Dr Sanderson by his genitals and twisting as hard as he can. Dr Sanderson falls to the ground in agony
hitting his head on a coffee table rendering him unconscious.

Gerhard looks around the room and, for the first time, notices many photographs of Dr Sanderson
with his daughter and realises he is in the wrong house. He goes into the kitchen, intending to leave
by the back door to avoid being blamed for Dr Sanderson’s injuries, and sees Honeysuckle hiding under
the kitchen table. He kneels down and crawls toward her, telling her that her that he is not going to
hurt her, but she is terrified and runs away, tripping over the step in her panic and cutting her leg on
the broken glass left on the ground when Gerhard broke into the house.

Explore what, if any, criminal liability arises from these events. Limit your answer to offences
covered in the Criminal Law II syllabus.

QUESTION 2

Galvin has a crush on his colleague, Elimay. He overhears her arranging to meet their line manager,
Bob Olinger, for a drink after work and decides to drop by the pub in the hope that they will ask him
to join them. When Galvin arrives at the pub, Bob is sitting at a table with two drinks in front of him
and Galvin sees him empty a packet of white powder into the glass of wine. Elimay joins Bob at the
table and starts to drink the wine. She rapidly shows signs of extreme intoxication, falling off her chair
and needing Bob’s help to stand. Galvin hears Bob tell Elimay that he will fetch his car and drive her
home. As soon as Bob leaves to collect his car, Galvin takes Elimay by the arm and ushers her into a
taxi. Elimay slumps in her seat, barely conscious, and does not respond when the taxi driver asks her
address so Galvin gets the taxi to take them to his house. When they arrive, Galvin takes £20 out of
Elimay’s purse to pay the fare and helps her out of the taxi. The fresh air seems to revive her and she
starts kissing Galvin passionately as soon as they are inside the house. Galvin and Elimay go into his
bedroom where intercourse occurs. Elimay falls into a very heavy sleep immediately afterwards and
Galvin is unable to wake her in the morning so he goes to work leaving her sleeping in his bed.

Galvin takes advantage of Elimay’s absence to go into her office and look through her desk. There he
finds her address and a key labelled ‘spare house key’ so he takes it and has a copy made during his
lunch break. He had intended to keep the original key and replace it with the copy so that he feels like
Elimay has given him a key but the newly cut key is much shinier than the original and he fears that
Elimay will notice the substitution so he puts the original key back in her desk drawer.

When he returns home that evening, Elimay is not in his house. He sees her at work the following day
and she tells him she has no memory of anything since sitting with Bob in the pub. Elimay says that
she has a terrible headache and would have taken the day off work but she has to fly to Manchester
for an important meeting that she cannot miss. Galvin is disappointed that Elimay cannot remember
the night that they spent together but decides to talk to her about it when she returns from
Manchester in the following day. In the meantime, he takes the key that he had cut and lets himself
into Elimay’s house while she is away. He takes a bath and sits naked on Elimay’s sofa watching
television and later sleeps in her bed.
Galvin is at work the following day when Elimay returns and confronts him about going into her house.
He had not noticed the video doorbell which recorded his arrival in the evening and his departure the
next morning. He tried to tell Elimay about his love for her and the night they spent together but she
slaps him around the face and stormed out of the office. Ten minutes later, he receives a text from
Elimay calling him a crazy stalker and threatening him with a restraining order if he ever approaches
her again. Distraught, Galvin goes home and sits in bed crying for several hours. When he calms down,
Galvin sends Elimay a text that says ‘I’m sorry you were upset. I just love you so much and I want us
to be together. I’m coming round now.’ Elimay reads the text and thinks that Galvin is deranged and
dangerous so she runs out of the house immediately even though she is only wearing a dressing gown
and drives to her sister’s house. She is too afraid of Galvin to return to work or to live alone in her
house and is later diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.

Explore what, if any, criminal liability Galvin may have arising from these events. Limit your answer
to offences covered in the Criminal Law II syllabus.

QUESTION THREE

Roksana wants to go on a weekend camping trip with four of her schoolfriends but her mother,
Funambule, refuses on the basis that Roksana is only 12 and should not be sleeping in a tent in the
woods with no adults present. Roksana protests that her friends are all going and that, in any case,
she will be 13 the week before the trip but Funambule remains unmoved.

Roksana is furious with her mother for treating her like a child and resolves to do something to prove
a point that she should be treated like an adult. She waits until her mother is asleep and sneaks
downstairs, taking a £20 note and a casino membership card out of Funambule’s handbag on the way
out of the house. Roksana uses the membership card to gain access to the casino but soon loses the
£20 playing roulette. This makes her feel worried as she had assumed that she would win and be able
to replace the money she had taken before her mother noticed it missing.

Roksana notices that a woman sitting alone at a table in the bar has left her handbag unattended while
she goes outside to make a telephone call. Roksana walks past the table and picks the bag up
surreptitiously. She takes it into a cubicle in the ladies’ toilet and removes £120 in case from the purse.
She leaves the bag in the cubicle and returns to the casino. She notices an older man, Santini, watching
her and, worried that he saw her take the bag, she dodges through a door marked ‘staff only’ to hide
from him. She finds a door out into the car park from the staff area and is disconcerted to see Santini
standing there waiting for her. He tells her that he saw her take the money and offers her a lift home.
Santini pulls his car into a layby and starts to kiss Roksana and fondle her breasts. She wants to push
him away but is afraid that he will get her into trouble for taking the money so she pretends that she
is enjoying their intimacy. When she gets home, Roksana puts one of the £20 notes that she took from
the woman’s bag into her mother’s purse and replaces the casino membership card.

On the weekend of the camping trip, Roksana feels miserable that her friends are having fun without
her. She is bored and phones Santini to suggest they have lunch in town. As they are waiting for their
meals to arrive, Santini thanks Roksana for treating him to lunch. She says that she thought he would
pay but he laughs and says, ‘you asked me and besides I’m sure you’ve still got plenty of money left
from the casino’. Roksana has no money. She eats her meal and tells Santini that she will meet him in
the car park. He leaves and she explains to the waiter that she has forgotten her purse and promises
to return to pay for the food later that day. Roksana goes with Santini to his house where they have
intercourse. Afterwards, Santini takes a photograph of Roksana while she is naked. She is furious and
attacks him, scratching his face with her fingernails and running out of the house. Roksana is so upset
by these events that it entirely slips her mind that she was supposed to return to the restaurant to
pay for the meal.

Explore what, if any, criminal liability arises from these events. Limit your answer to offences
covered in the Criminal Law II syllabus