Legal Case Brief
R v Nedrick [1986] 1 WLR 102
Murder – Mens Rea – Foresight – Intention – Inferred Intent
Facts
The defendant Nedrick held a grudge against a woman. In the middle of the night he drove to her house before pouring petrol through her letter box and igniting it. The defendant, without warning anyone in the house then drove home. As a result of the fire a child died and Nedrick was charged with murder. The trial judge directed the jury that if the defendant knew it was highly probable that the act would result in serious bodily harm to someone, even if he did not desire that result, he would be guilty of murder. Nedrick was convicted of murder and appealed.
Issues
Whether a jury is entitled to infer intent if they consider a defendant’s actions highly likely to cause death or serious bodily harm. Whether the defendant’s foresight of the likely consequences of his act is sufficient to satisfy the mens rea of murder as intent. Whether the trial judge’s direction to the jury that the defendant could be guilty of murder if he knew it was highly probable that serious bodily harm would occur as a result of his act was a misdirection.
Decision/Outcome
The appeal was allowed. The trial judge’s direction was a mis-direction. Modifying R v Moloney [1985] 1 AC 905, the Court of Appeal held that the jury should be directed that they are not entitled to infer intention unless they are satisfied that they felt sure that death or serious bodily injury was a virtual certainty of the defendant’s actions and that the defendant knew this.
Updated 20 March 2026
This case summary remains broadly accurate as a description of R v Nedrick [1986] 1 WLR 1025 and its role in the development of the law on oblique intent in murder. However, readers should be aware of two important subsequent developments.
First, the House of Lords in R v Woollin [1999] 1 AC 82 refined and effectively superseded the Nedrick direction. The House of Lords confirmed that where a defendant does not aim at a result, the jury should be directed that they are not entitled to find the necessary intention unless they are satisfied that death or serious bodily injury was a virtual certainty of the defendant’s actions and that the defendant appreciated that to be the case. Notably, the Lords substituted the word ‘find’ for ‘infer’, a change considered potentially significant in subsequent academic and judicial commentary. Woollin is now the leading authority on this point and should be read alongside Nedrick.
Second, the decision in R v Matthews and Alleyne [2003] EWCA Crim 192 further considered the relationship between foresight of virtual certainty and intention, confirming that such foresight is evidence from which the jury may find intention, rather than being intention in law as a matter of definition. This distinction remains live in academic debate.
The Nedrick direction itself, while historically significant, has been substantially replaced in practice by the Woollin direction, and students should treat Woollin as the current leading case on oblique intent in murder.
