AQA A-Level Law: Criminal Offences and Defences — Revision Notes

These notes condense the offences and defences in AQA A-level Law (7162) section 3.2 into tables and checklists for final revision. Each offence is listed with its elements and the case you should cite for each one; Paper 1 rewards rule, authority, application and conclusion in that order. For the full explanation, use the Criminal Offences and Defences study guide; the general elements of liability are in the criminal liability revision notes.

Rules and theory in one glance

• Sources: murder and manslaughter are common law; assault and battery are common law offences charged under s39 Criminal Justice Act 1988; s47, s20 and s18 come from the Offences Against the Person Act 1861; theft and robbery from the Theft Act 1968; attempt from the Criminal Attempts Act 1981.
• Burden: prosecution, beyond reasonable doubt (Woolmington v DPP, 1935). Exceptions to know: insanity and diminished responsibility, where the defendant proves the defence on the balance of probabilities.
• Harm: Mill’s harm principle as the justification for criminalising conduct.
• Autonomy, fault and individual responsibility: liability follows a free choice to do wrong.
• Four principles: fair labelling, correspondence, maximum certainty, no retrospective liability.

Use the principles to evaluate: s47 and unlawful act manslaughter break correspondence; the vague “dangerous” test and gross negligence’s “so bad as to be criminal” test strain maximum certainty; the single label “murder” for a mercy killing and a contract killing raises fair labelling.

Fatal offences

Offence	Elements	Cases
Murder	Unlawful killing, under the King’s peace, with intention to kill or cause GBH	Vickers (1957); Nedrick (1986); Woollin (1998)
Loss of control (s54–55 CJA 2009)	Loss of self-control (need not be sudden); qualifying trigger (fear of serious violence and/or extremely grave circumstances causing justifiable sense of being seriously wronged); normal person test; no considered desire for revenge	Clinton (2012) on sexual infidelity as context
Diminished responsibility (s2 Homicide Act 1957, as amended)	Abnormality of mental functioning; recognised medical condition; substantial impairment of understanding, rational judgment or self-control; provides an explanation	Golds (2016); Dowds (2012)
Unlawful act manslaughter	Unlawful (criminal) act; objectively dangerous; causes death	Lamb (1967); Church (1966); Newbury and Jones (1977)
Gross negligence manslaughter	Duty; breach; serious and obvious risk of death; causation; gross negligence	Adomako (1995); Rose (2017)

Loss of control and diminished responsibility are partial defences to murder only; success gives a manslaughter conviction with a discretionary sentence instead of mandatory life.

Non-fatal offences — the ladder

Assault    apprehension of immediate unlawful force    intention / recklessness
Battery    application of unlawful force                intention / recklessness
s47        assault or battery + ABH                     mens rea of assault/battery only
s20        wound or inflict GBH                         foresee SOME harm (Mowatt)
s18        wound or cause GBH                           INTEND GBH

• ABH: any hurt or injury interfering with health or comfort (Miller); psychiatric injury counts, emotions do not (Chan-Fook); loss of consciousness counts (T v DPP).
• Wound: both layers of skin broken (Eisenhower). GBH: really serious harm (DPP v Smith), judged against the victim (Bollom); psychiatric GBH (Burstow).
• Assault by words or silence (Ireland); words can cancel a threat (Tuberville v Savage). Battery can be indirect (Haystead).
• Maximum sentences: s47 and s20 five years; s18 life.

Property offences

Theft, s1: dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with intention to permanently deprive.

Section	Element	Authority
s3	Appropriation: any assumption of an owner’s rights, even with consent	Morris; Gomez; Hinks
s4	Property: money, real, personal, things in action — not information	Oxford v Moss
s5	Belonging to another: possession or control; particular purpose; mistake	Turner (No 2); Davidge v Bunnett
s2	Dishonesty: three statutory “not dishonest” beliefs, then Ivey test	Ivey v Genting (2017); Barton and Booth (2020)
s6	Intention to permanently deprive: treat as own to dispose of; borrowing only if goodness gone	Lloyd (1985)

Robbery, s8: theft + force (or putting or seeking to put in fear of force) on any person, immediately before or at the time of stealing, in order to steal. No theft means no robbery (Robinson); slight force is enough (Dawson and James); force on a bag counts (Clouden); appropriation can continue (Hale).

Attempt

• Actus reus: an act more than merely preparatory (s1(1) CAA 1981) — “embarked on the crime proper” (Gullefer; Jones). Not enough: Campbell, Geddes. Enough: Tosti.
• Mens rea: intention to commit the full offence; attempted murder needs intent to kill (Whybrow).
• Impossibility: no defence (s1(2)); Shivpuri overruled Anderton v Ryan using the Practice Statement.

Capacity defences

Defence	Test	Effect	Cases
Insanity	Defect of reason, from disease of the mind (internal cause), so D did not know nature and quality of act or that it was legally wrong	Special verdict; hospital order, supervision order or absolute discharge	M’Naghten (1843); Kemp; Sullivan; Hennessy; Burgess; Windle; Clarke
Automatism	Total loss of voluntary control from an external factor	Full acquittal	Hill v Baxter; Quick; A-G’s Ref (No 2 of 1992)
Self-induced automatism	No defence to basic intent if D was reckless	Depends on recklessness	Bailey; Hardie
Voluntary intoxication	May negate specific intent; no defence to basic intent	—	Beard; Majewski; Gallagher
Involuntary intoxication	Defence only if no mens rea formed	Acquittal if no mens rea	Kingston; Hardie

The diabetes trap: too much insulin (hypoglycaemia, external) is automatism (Quick); failing to take insulin (hyperglycaemia, internal) is insanity (Hennessy).

Necessity defences

Self-defence / prevention of crime (common law, s3 CLA 1967, s76 CJIA 2008):

1. Was force necessary on the facts as D honestly believed them? (Gladstone Williams; Beckford) — not if the mistake was due to voluntary intoxication (s76(5); O’Grady; Hatton).
2. Was the force reasonable in the circumstances as D believed them? (Palmer; s76(7)). Householders: only grossly disproportionate force is excluded (s76(5A)).
3. No duty to retreat (Bird); pre-emptive force possible.
4. All or nothing: excessive force in a killing means murder (Clegg; Martin (Anthony)).

Duress by threats: threat of death or serious injury (Hasan); Graham two-stage test — reasonable belief in the threat, and sober person of reasonable firmness sharing D’s characteristics (Bowen); threat must relate to the offence committed (Cole); no defence to murder (Howe) or attempted murder (Gotts); lost through voluntary association with criminals (Hasan).

Duress of circumstances: same test, threat from the situation — Willer, Conway, Martin (Colin); available except for murder and attempted murder (Pommell).

Exam traps

• Forgetting implied malice (intention to cause GBH) in murder.
• Requiring a “sudden” loss of control.
• Using foresight of serious harm for s20.
• Calling something robbery when there is no completed theft.
• Mixing up internal and external causes for insanity and automatism.
• Offering duress for murder, or forgetting the voluntary association rule.
• Treating self-defence as a partial defence.

Self-test

1. State the three stages of loss of control under s54.
2. Which case set the “substantially” standard for diminished responsibility?
3. What is the mens rea of s47?
4. Give the Ivey test for dishonesty.
5. Why did Campbell’s conviction for attempted robbery fail?
6. Distinguish insanity from automatism.

Answers: 1. Loss of self-control; a qualifying trigger; a person of D’s sex and age with normal tolerance and self-restraint might have reacted similarly. 2. R v Golds (2016). 3. The mens rea of the assault or battery only; no foresight of harm is needed (Savage). 4. What did D actually believe about the facts, and was the conduct dishonest by the standards of ordinary decent people? 5. He had not gone beyond preparation; he had not entered the post office. 6. Insanity arises from an internal disease of the mind and leads to a special verdict; automatism arises from an external factor and leads to an acquittal.

Frequently asked questions

What is the mens rea of murder in AQA A Level Law? Murder is an unlawful killing under the King’s peace with intention to kill or to cause grievous bodily harm. Forgetting implied malice, the intention to cause GBH, is a common exam trap in AQA A Level Law 7162.

What is the difference between insanity and automatism? The key difference is the cause: an internal cause points to insanity and an external cause to automatism. For example, too much insulin is automatism (Quick), while failing to take insulin is insanity (Hennessy).

Can duress be a defence to murder? No. Duress, whether by threats or of circumstances, is not available for murder or attempted murder.

Do loss of control and diminished responsibility lead to an acquittal? No. They are partial defences to murder only; success leads to a manslaughter conviction with a discretionary sentence instead of the mandatory life sentence.

Related: Criminal offences and defences practice questions