Legal Case Summary
R v JM and SM [2012] EWCA Crim 2293
Unlawful act manslaughter and foreseeable harm
Facts
JM and SM were involved in a fight with nightclub doormen. One doorman died shortly afterwards from a ruptured renal artery aneurysm. The prosecution alleged that shock from the affray caused the rupture. JM and SM were charged with affray and unlawful act manslaughter. The trial judge withdrew the manslaughter charges from the jury because he considered the kind of harm that caused the death was not foreseeable. The prosecution appealed.
Issues
The prosecution argued that the trial judge had erred in his finding that it was a necessary element of manslaughter resulting from an unlawful act that any reasonable person should inevitably see that the victim’s death occurred due to the “sort of harm” the risk of which the unlawful act carried.
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Decision / Outcome
Allowing the prosecution’s appeal, the Court of Appeal held that it was not a requirement of unlawful act manslaughter that the accused should have foreseen any specific harm or that any reasonable person would have realised the sort of harm that had in fact occurred and caused the victim’s death. What actually mattered was whether a sober and reasonable person would recognise that the unlawful act exposed the victim to a risk of some harm. The prosecution still had to prove that the unlawful act caused the death. A jury, if adequately and correctly directed, could have concluded based on the evidence that a reasonable person would have foreseen that the victim had been at a risk of suffering some harm as a result of the defendants’ unlawful acts of affray. The Court of Appeal confined its decision to the case of a deceased person who was directly involved in the affray.
