Explain and evaluate the exten
Explain and evaluate the extent to which the decision of the House of Lords in Woollin (1999) AC 82 has clarified the meaning of the concept of intention in English criminal law.The expression mens rea refers to the state of mind expressly or impliedly required by the definition of the offence charged.1 Four different levels of mens rea exist, Recklessness, Negligence, Strict liability and intention, also referred to as specific intent. A certain set of crimes can only be committed if you have the intention to commit them. If you do not intend to kill someone, you cannot be convicted of murder, as you do not have the necessary mens rea. The mens rea term 'intention conveys the highest level of culpability of an offender. If the result is intended by the person he would be considered more culpable than a person who would act recklessly. It would be reasonable enough to assume that such a widely used term as intention would have been clearly determined by now. However there always was one settled proposition, if a person desires something and acts in order to achieve it, the result is regarded as intended. This is most commonly known as the 'ordinary meaning'. The definitions of many criminal offences include term
Lord Hailsham used the terms 'inseparable consequences' and 'morally certain consequence' while Lord Diplock was happy to accept 'likely'. This definition is somewhat narrower than the 'highly probable' consequences of Hyam, but perhaps slightly broader than Lord Hailsham's 'inseparable consequences'. Their Lordships were divided as to whether this meant that there were four categories of mens rea or whether for this purpose intention was required and recklessness was equivalent to intention. There would seem to be a significant difference between foreseeing a consequence as highly likely and foreseeing it as a moral certainty. The concrete consequently struck a taxi's windscreen and killed the driver. The conviction for murder was quashed. It could be assumed that if the accused realized that the results of his action were the 'natural consequences' of the action, this gave additional weight to the view that the consequences were intended. Mr Woollin killed his baby son in a fit of anger, by throwing him on a hard surface. Lord Steyn held that the trial judge had been wrong to depart from the Nedrick model direction by doing so he had burred the distinction between intention and recklessness and hence between murder and manslaughter. The outcome was that the appellant shot his stepfather and was charged with murder. 9The House of Lords however, converted the conviction to manslaughter, upholding the Nedrick principle. Both men had been drinking heavily. 2 These judgements caused some confusion because it made intention difficult to distinguish from recklessness. In Nedrick (1986), another of those cases which will occur only rarely, the appellant poured paraffin through the letterbox of a house and set light to it.
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Acceptance Essays
