3. The elements of a crime

Actus reus

Voluntary conduct: The act must be voluntary. Thought alone is never punished.

Omissions: Failure to act is criminal only where there is a legal duty to act, for example from statute, contract, relationship or assumption of care.

Possession and status: Some offences are committed by being in possession of something forbidden.

Mens rea

Intention: Aiming at a result, or foreseeing it as virtually certain.

Recklessness and negligence: Taking an unjustified risk knowingly, or falling far below the standard of a reasonable person.

Transferred malice: If D aims at A and harms B, the intent transfers. Dogbowu v R (WACA) applied this where a blow aimed at a woman killed the child on her back.

Strict liability

Absolute offences: Some regulatory offences need no mens rea. In Comptroller of Customs v Basma the court looked at the object of the statute and the absence of words like "knowingly" and held the customs offence absolute.

The presumption: Courts still presume mens rea is needed unless the statute clearly or by necessary implication excludes it (Sweet v Parsley).

Causation

Factual and legal cause: D's act must be a cause in fact and a legal cause of the result.

Medical treatment: Poor treatment does not break the chain if the original wound is still an operating and substantial cause. Bangura v R (CA) applied R v Smith [1959] 2 QB 35 on this point.

Concurrence

Coincidence: The guilty mind and guilty act must coincide, although a continuing act or a series of acts may be treated as one.