CILEX Professional Qualification (CPQ) Foundation Stage: Criminal Law Syllabus

Foundation Stage: Criminal Law syllabus — full chapter and topic list

Expand any chapter to see its topics and sub-topics. This is the whole examinable outline for Foundation Stage: Criminal Law in CILEX Professional Qualification (CPQ), not a summary of it.

1. 1

   Principles of Criminal Liability

   4 topics

   • Actus reus
     • Conduct, consequence and circumstance
     • Omissions and duty to act
     • Causation: factual and legal
   • Mens rea
     • Intention: direct and oblique
     • Recklessness and the subjective test
     • Negligence and strict liability
   • Coincidence of actus reus and mens rea
   • Transferred malice
2. 2

   Fatal and Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person

   4 topics

   • Murder
     • The definition and the requirement of malice aforethought
   • Voluntary manslaughter
     • Loss of control (Coroners and Justice Act 2009)
     • Diminished responsibility
   • Involuntary manslaughter
     • Unlawful act manslaughter
     • Gross negligence manslaughter
   • Non-fatal offences
     • Assault and battery
     • Assault occasioning actual bodily harm (s.47 OAPA 1861)
     • Wounding and grievous bodily harm (ss.20 and 18 OAPA 1861)
3. 3

   Property Offences

   4 topics

   • Theft under the Theft Act 1968
     • Appropriation, property and belonging to another
     • Dishonesty and the Ivey test
     • Intention permanently to deprive
   • Robbery and burglary
   • Fraud under the Fraud Act 2006
     • Fraud by false representation, failing to disclose and abuse of position
   • Criminal damage
4. 4

   General Defences and Inchoate Liability

   4 topics

   • Capacity defences
     • Insanity and automatism
     • Intoxication: voluntary and involuntary
   • Justificatory defences
     • Self-defence and prevention of crime
     • Duress and necessity
   • Participation and secondary liability
   • Inchoate offences: attempts, conspiracy and assisting/encouraging

Foundation Stage: Criminal Law flashcards for CILEX Professional Qualification (CPQ)

20 of 57 cards from the Foundation Stage: Criminal Law deck — real questions with worked answers.

1. What are the two essential elements that the prosecution must generally prove for criminal liability, and what does each mean?

   Actus reus (the guilty act — the prohibited conduct, circumstances and/or consequences) and mens rea (the guilty mind — the defendant's state of mind). Both must usually be present and coincide for liability.

2. In criminal law, what are the three possible components of an actus reus?

   (1) Conduct (an act or, exceptionally, an omission), (2) Circumstances surrounding the conduct, and (3) Consequences/results that the conduct produces.

3. What is the general rule on liability for omissions, and what are the recognised exceptions giving rise to a duty to act?

   General rule: there is no liability for a mere failure to act. Exceptions (a duty to act): statutory duty; contractual duty (Pittwood); special/close relationship (Gibbins & Proctor); voluntary assumption of responsibility (Stone & Dobinson); creating a dangerous situation (Miller); and public office (Dytham).

4. What must the prosecution prove regarding factual causation, and which test is used?

   That the defendant's conduct was a factual cause of the result, applied via the 'but for' test (R v White): but for the defendant's act, would the result have occurred? If it would have occurred anyway, factual causation is not established.

5. What is the test for legal causation in criminal law?

   The defendant's act must be a substantial (more than minimal/de minimis) and operating cause of the result. It need not be the sole or main cause, but it must significantly contribute (R v Smith).

6. What is the 'thin skull' rule in causation?

   The defendant must take the victim as he finds them. If the victim has a particular vulnerability (physical, religious or otherwise) that worsens the harm, the defendant remains liable for the full consequences (R v Blaue — refusal of blood transfusion on religious grounds did not break the chain).

7. When will an intervening act (novus actus interveniens) break the chain of causation?

   When it is free, deliberate and informed (a voluntary third-party or victim act), or so independent and potent that it renders the original act merely part of the history. Medical negligence breaks the chain only if 'palpably wrong' and independent so the original wound is no longer operating (R v Cheshire, R v Jordan).

8. What is direct intention in criminal law?

   The defendant's aim, purpose or desire is to bring about the prohibited consequence. The result is what the defendant set out to achieve.

9. State the test for oblique (indirect) intention from R v Woollin.

   The jury is entitled to find intention where (1) death or serious bodily harm was a virtual certainty as a result of the defendant's actions, and (2) the defendant appreciated that this was the case. It is a rule of evidence permitting an inference, not a definition of intent.

10. What is the test for subjective (Cunningham) recklessness?

    The defendant is reckless where he foresees a risk of the prohibited consequence/circumstance and nonetheless goes on to take that risk unreasonably (R v Cunningham, confirmed in R v G). The test is what this defendant actually foresaw, not what a reasonable person would foresee.

11. What is the standard for criminal negligence (e.g. gross negligence), and how does it differ from recklessness?

    Negligence is judged objectively against the reasonable person standard — it does not require the defendant to foresee the risk. Recklessness is subjective, requiring actual foresight of the risk by the defendant.

12. What is the coincidence (contemporaneity) principle, and how do courts mitigate it via a continuing act?

    Actus reus and mens rea must coincide in time. Courts treat the actus reus as a continuing act so that mens rea formed at any point during its continuance suffices (Fagan v MPC — wheel on the foot) or treat a series of acts as one transaction (Thabo Meli).

13. Explain the doctrine of transferred malice.

    Where the defendant has mens rea for a crime against one victim/object but, by mistake or accident, the actus reus takes effect on a different victim/object of the same type, the mens rea is transferred to the actual victim (R v Latimer). Malice cannot transfer between different types of offence (R v Pembliton).

14. What is the actus reus and mens rea of murder?

    Actus reus: the unlawful killing of a human being under the King's Peace. Mens rea: malice aforethought, meaning intention to kill (express) or intention to cause grievous bodily harm (implied).

15. In the law of murder, what does 'grievous bodily harm' mean for the purposes of malice aforethought?

    'Really serious harm' (DPP v Smith). An intention to cause really serious harm is sufficient mens rea for murder even though the defendant did not intend to kill (R v Vickers).

16. What are the three special/partial defences to murder, and what is their effect?

    Diminished responsibility, loss of control, and suicide pact. Each is a partial defence that, if successful, reduces liability from murder to voluntary manslaughter (avoiding the mandatory life sentence). They apply only to murder.

17. State the four elements of diminished responsibility under s.2 Homicide Act 1957 (as amended by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009).

    (1) An abnormality of mental functioning, (2) arising from a recognised medical condition, (3) which substantially impaired the defendant's ability to understand the nature of his conduct, form a rational judgment, or exercise self-control, and (4) which provides an explanation for (causes/significantly contributes to) the killing. The defendant bears the burden of proof on the balance of probabilities.

18. State the three components of the loss of control defence under ss.54–55 Coroners and Justice Act 2009.

    (1) The defendant lost self-control, (2) caused by a qualifying trigger (fear of serious violence and/or things said or done amounting to circumstances of an extremely grave character giving the defendant a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged), and (3) a person of the defendant's sex and age, with a normal degree of tolerance and self-restraint and in the defendant's circumstances, might have reacted in the same/similar way.

19. Under the loss of control defence, the loss of control need not be sudden — but what two things are expressly excluded as qualifying triggers?

    Sexual infidelity is excluded as a qualifying trigger, and a defendant cannot rely on a trigger that he incited as an excuse to use violence (a considered desire for revenge also defeats the defence).

20. What are the two distinct forms of involuntary manslaughter?

    (1) Unlawful act (constructive) manslaughter, and (2) gross negligence manslaughter. Both involve an unlawful killing without the malice aforethought required for murder.

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