Criminal Liability in a Case Scenario

Criminal Law

Contents
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..............................................................................................................................................3
Case scenario...........................................................................................................................................3
Criminal law............................................................................................................................................4
Law of murder.........................................................................................................................................4
Criminal liability of Dom........................................................................................................................5
Defenses available in case of crime of murder........................................................................................6
Criminal liability of Nick........................................................................................................................7
Grievous or serious bodily harm..............................................................................................................8
Offence for sexual intercourse.................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Laws are the set of rules which are formulated and enforced in whole of the state. It is
essential that it is followed by every citizen otherwise it may give rise to the criminal liability.
There are mainly two types of laws which involves firstly the civil law which deals with dispute
relating to two private individuals and the second is criminal law which relates with criminal
offences and deals with dispute between private individual and the state. In United Kingdom,
especially in England and Wales, there is no codified criminal code but its enactment is often
attempted and recommended. It consists of many criminal offences which have been evolved
from the common law rather than specified in any statute. Criminal conduct is regarded as te
wrong which is committed against the whole community rather than an individual and the state
has the responsibility for its prevention (Amatrudo, 2018). There are many organizations such as
police, courts, prisons, etc. who are responsible to enforce the criminal law and prevent its
happening. The criminal law mainly concerns role of justice courts, application of statutory and
common law of criminal why any form of behavior is regarded as the criminal behavior. This
report is based on a case scenario and is aimed to highlight the criminal liability in the case.
MAIN BODY
Case scenario
Jess and Dom are in a volatile relationship from the last three years. Jess is having an
affair with its work colleague whose name is Nick. Dom have suspected that Jess is having the
affair with someone so one day he arrives at his workplace and waits outside the office. After
5.30pm, Dom sees that Jess is leaving office with Nick and he also sees that she is kissing Dom
passionately. Then Dom returns to the home and waits for her and when she arrives, he confront
her and also accuses her that she is having affair. Then afterwards, Jess says that she is leaving
Dom for Nick so he snaps her and also grabs her by throat. He also strangles Jess till she dies.
When Nick hears about the death of Nick, he avenges and follows Dom late at night when he
leaves home. When they both reaches the secluded location, Nick goes to Dom and throws it on
ground and pulls off its glasses and stamps on them in order to break them. Dom then is unable

to see clearly and feels disorientated. Nick produces the penknife and stabs on the thigh of Dom
and forces Dom to ground and has the sexual intercourse with Nick.
Criminal law
It is body of mechanism and principle which are designed to bring the suspect to the
justice by way of fair trails and acquit an innocent and punish and convict the guilty. The role of
criminal courts apart from punishing the wrongdoer and rendering justice to victim is that they
have the obligation to rehabilitate the offenders. It includes the legislation relating to the criminal
trails, police investigation and giving punishment. The judgments in criminal law are mainly
made in accordance with the principle of beyond reasonable doubt (Janet, 2020).
Law of murder
It is derived from the common law. Murder is meant as the unlawful killing of the
reasonable creature in Queen’s peace with the malice aforethought. The essentials of murder are-
 Unlawful killing- It means that causing death and unlawful killing can be present when
there is no justification for it such as self-defense. In the case of Airedale NHS Trust v.
Bland, the court held that when there is withdrawal of the life-saving treatment which
may sustain the life of patient in its best interest is not murder but injecting the drug
which can bring death of patient would constitute the offence of murder.
 Any reasonable creature- it includes the human being only. For removal of doubt, a baby
cannot come under this requirement until it is fully born.
 Under Queen’s peace- Under section 9 of the Offence Against the person Act of 1891,
the person is killed anywhere whether it is in England or wales or not, they can be
convicted and tried in England or Wales. Section 10 of this legislation removes the doubt
that the defendant has to be the subject of Queen.
 Malice aforethought- This means that there is intention to cause grievous harm to the
person or kill it. In the case of R v. Cunningham, the word malice aforethought is
misleading as it suggests the elements of ill will against the victim as well as some degree
of the premeditation (Duff, 2018).
There are two elements of the offence of murder which includes firstly the mens rea and secondly
actus reus. The former in the criminal law is mainly concerned with state of mind of defendant.