CRIMINAL LIABILITY

Criminal Liability



Criminal Liability

Introduction

This assignment will look into firstly what can be defined as a critical incident in the eyes. Then discussion into such a critical incident experienced by a student in an accident. Looking into the importance of infection control in line with the incident and ethical issues.

Although the fundamental purpose of the criminal law is to prohibit certain acts and to punish those responsible, there are a number of situations which can arise when a failure to act will result in criminal liability. This liability arises when an individual is under a duty to act, and fails to do so.

Case Analysis

The common law rightly limits criminal liability for omissions to clearly defined circumstances in which there is a pre-existing duty.

We think there is a clear distinction between an act of omission and an act of commission likely to cause harm.

All lawyers and students alike are aware of the classic example of the passer-by who sees a child drowning in a shallow pool but refuses to rescue the child. The passer-by commits no criminal offence.

However, in 1983 the House of Lords in Junaid v Ali extended liability for omissions to a range of situations which are vague and difficult to predict.

The following essay will discuss to what extent, if any, criminal liability depends upon an individual deliberately failing to act.

Where the duty is imposed by statute A myriad of statutory duties exist which require individuals to act in a given way, with failure to do so attracting criminal punishment.

A relatively recent example of an Act of Parliament, which punishes individuals for failing to act, is the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 (hereafter DVCA 2004). Under section 5 of the DVCA 2004, an individual over the age of 16 is guilty of an offence if a child or vulnerable adult, who was a member of the same household as them, dies, and that individual had frequent contact with the deceased and was aware or ought to have been aware of a significant risk of serious physical harm (act) to the deceased, and failed to take reasonable steps to protect the deceased from that risk. Section 5(6) defines an act as a course of conduct or an omission.

It was clearly Parliament's intention to impose liability if an individual failed to act, with the imposition of an objective standard upon what risk they ought to have been aware of, and the act which caused the death occurred in circumstances of the kind which they ought to have foreseen (emphasis added). The DVCA 2004 was passed to circumvent the problems experienced by the prosecution when a child is killed in the family home and both parents deny causing the death.

Consequently, there is no requirement of an intention to 'deliberately' ignore the plight of the child or vulnerable adult for liability to ensue. Simple negligence or mere indifference will be captured by the objective standard imposed by the DVCA 2004. This is plainly a far-reaching extension of ...