R v Parker [1977] 1 WLR 600
Failure to consider consequences from one’s actions and risk of damage
Facts
The appellant had tried (and failed) to place a telephone call in a street telephone booth. This infuriated him and in a rage, he slammed the handset onto the telephone, causing damage to the latter. He had argued that he had not, at all, contemplated the risk of damage to the telephone.
Issues
In what circumstances does a failure on the part of a Defendant to contemplate the risk of damage prevent him from being found guilty under the recklessness head of s.1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971?
Decision/Outcome
Cunningham Recklessness (from R v Cunningham [1957]) was modified to clarify that wilfully ignoring the potential for risk does not protect one from a conviction under the recklessness limb of s.1 CDA 1971. Closing one’s eyes to an obvious risk is not a sufficient defence. In the present case, the damage to the phone was an obvious, even inevitable, outcome of the appellant’s actions. Deliberately closing his mind to the risk in these circumstances was tantamount to knowledge in the eyes of the court.
“…a man certainly cannot escape the consequences of his action in this particular set of circumstances by saying ‘I never directed my mind to the obvious consequences because I was in a self-induced state of temper’” (Lane LJ, p.604).
The modified Cunnighamtest adopted was that a defendant would be reckless in the necessary sense for a s.1 CDA 1971 conviction if he carried out a deliberate act either with the knowledge that there is some risk of damage flowing from his act or while closing his mind to that obvious risk and carrying out the act anyway.
Updated 20 March 2026
This case summary remains broadly accurate as a description of the decision in R v Parker [1977] 1 WLR 600 and its role in modifying the Cunningham [1957] recklessness test. However, readers should be aware of a critical subsequent development: the House of Lords in R v G and Another [2003] UKHL 50 overruled R v Caldwell [1982] AC 341 and restored a purely subjective approach to recklessness for criminal damage under s.1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971. The current test is whether the defendant was aware of a risk that damage would occur, not whether that risk would have been obvious to a reasonable person. Parker itself falls within the subjective tradition and is therefore broadly consistent with the post-R v G position, in that the court was concerned with what Parker himself ought to have appreciated given the obvious nature of the risk — effectively treating wilful blindness as subjective awareness. Nevertheless, students should be cautious about treating Parker in isolation without understanding the wider recklessness landscape, and in particular the overruling of Caldwell. The article does not mention Caldwell, which was decided after Parker and which for a period displaced the subjective approach, nor the restoration of subjectivity by R v G. Reading Parker alongside those authorities is essential for a complete understanding of how recklessness under s.1 CDA 1971 now operates.
