Intent In The Law Of Manslaughter LAW REPORT, JUNE 23 COURT OF APPEAL Before LoRD Jusrica SACHS, MR Jusnca LYELL, and MR. JUSTICE GEoFFREY LANE [Jtidgment delivered Jutne 22] Giving reasons for quashing a conviction of manslaughter, the Court said the first part of the summing-up was vitiated by mis- directions based upon an erroneous concept of the law that manslaughter required no intent. The appellant, Terence Walter Lamb, aged 25, of Chadwell Heath, Essex, was convicted at the Central Criminal Court last November and sentenced by Mr. Justice Glyn-Jones to three years' imprisonment. Mr. J. P. Comyn, Q.C., and Mr. John Lloyd-Eley for the appellant; Mr. John C. Mathew for the Crown. Treated as a joke Lord Justice Sachs said that the appellant pointed a revolver; in jest and with no intention to do any harm, at the deceased, his best friend. There were two bullets in the chambers, but neither was in the chamber opposite the barrel. His friend had also treated the incident as a ioke. The appellant had pulled the trigger and killed his friend, although he had not intended to fire the revolver. Pulling the trigger had rotated the cylinder, placing a bullet opposite the barrel. The defence was that the appel- lant had been unaware that pulling the trigger would bring a bullet into the firing position, and that the killing was an accident. The general effect of the summing- up was that a verdict of Guilty could be returned on either or both of two grounds. The trial Judge had said: "It is manslaughter if death results from an unlawful and dangerous act on the part of the accused. It is also man- slaughter if death results from an extreme degree of carelessness, negli- gence, on the part of the accused. It is quite possible that to some extent they overlap.... With regard to the first ground, the trial Judge had fallen into error over the meaning of an unlawful act and had pressed upon the jury a defini- tion with which experienced counsel for the Crown had disagreed during the trial and could not support on appeal. The Judge took the view that pointing the revolver and pulling the trigger was something which could of itself be unlawful even if there was no intent to alarm or injure, and he did not refer to the defence of accident. or the need for the prosecution to disprove accident, before concluding that the act was unlawful. Mr. Mathew had put forward at all times the correct view that for the act to be unlawful it had to consti- tute at least a technical assault. There was no assault and the acts of the appellant were not on any other ground unlawful in the criminal sense because if the pulling of the trigger had had no effect no offence would have been comnitted. An act could not be considered unlaw- ful merely from the angle of civil liabilities. Another way of putting it was that, mens rea being an essential ingredient in manslaughter, it could not be established in relation to the first ground except by proving that element of intent without which there could be no assault. The whole of the summing-up concerning the first ground was thus vitiated by misdirections. Taken by themselves the directions on law on the second ground, crimi- nal negligence, were substantially cor- rect, but the Court would have to proceed with caution on being asked to uphold the verdict when so much of the first part of tihe summing-p was vitiated by misdirections, and especially when the jury had been told that the hwo grounds overlapped. Moreover, the jury had been directed on the first ground that if they found that any ordinary citizen of sound mind would inevitably have recognized that what the appellant did was an act which must subject the deceased to some risk of injury, he must be taken to have known that what he was doing was dangerous, and that as a matter of law such use of a revolver was an unlawful act whether or not it fell within any re- cognized category of crime. View understandable The general tenor of the sumraing- up on the first ground was to cause the jury to apply objective tests which withdrew from them consideration of what the appellant himself thought, and so the jury could hardly have avoided starting to consider the second ground upon the footing that he must be taken to have known that he was doing something dangerous. That was not the only reason why the verdict on the second ground could not stand. The general effect of the summing- up on the second ground was to withdraw the defence put forward from the jury. When the basis of a charge was criminal negligence, the jury had to consider among other matters the state of the defendant's mind, including whether or not he thought that what he was doing was safe. It would have been open to the jury, if properly directed, to have found him Guilty because they con- sidered his view that there was no danger was formed in a criminally negligent way. He was entitled, however, to a direction that the jury should take into account that he had formed the view that it was safe and that there was expert evidence that the view was understandable. The defects were such that the verdict could not stand, and accordingly the conviction was quashed. Solicitors.-Registrar of Criminal Appeals; Director of Public Prose- cutions. INTENT IN THE LAW OF MANSLAUGHTER REGINA v. LAMB