Where a criminal offence involves, not the immediate action, but its consequences, it is necessary to prove that the defendant’s act caused the forbidden consequences or events. \u00a0Similar issues arise in relation to torts \/ civil wrong.<\/p>\n
In a literal sense, a person may cause all acts or events which have happened, but for his behaviour. Sometimes the effective cause may be due to other and multiple factors and causes. Where common sense says that the effective cause of the event is not the defendant’s conduct, but some other factor, \u00a0then the defendant is not usually held responsible. It may be different if he has a duty under the relevant legislation, to avoid the consequence concerned.<\/p>\n
In many cases, \u00a0the matter of cause and effect is one of inference from the circumstances. \u00a0There may be no direct evidence linking the defendant’s conduct with the thing that constitutes the offence.\u00a0 However, a court or a jury can draw inferences from the facts, common sense, and its knowledge of the normal course of events.<\/p>\n
Where there are multiple causes, the court or jury will determine which is the substantial and real cause. In some cases, a new act may intervene, which breaks the “chain” of causation. \u00a0If the new act is the effective cause of the prohibited conduct, then it may be determined that the defendant’s original conduct was not the cause.<\/p>\n
The issue of the cause may arise in the context of the response of a victim. \u00a0The victim of an assault, for example, may injure himself in trying to escape. If the victim’s responses are one that is foreseeable and predictable, even if not probable, \u00a0\u00a0then the defendant is likely to be held responsible.<\/p>\n
The eggshell rule that applies in relation to the law of civil wrongs also applies to causation in the context of criminal responsibility. It is reasonable that the offender takes the victim as he finds him with his vulnerabilities. If a victim is affected more seriously by an act because of a pre-existing weakness, the accused is likely to be held to be responsible.<\/p>\n\n
\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
General The more serious crimes have both an act and a mental element.\u00a0 The “act” is the act and entire consequences, which constitutes the prohibited behaviour. \u00a0The mental element is the requisite degree of intention, recklessness, or carelessness, which must accompany the act in order to constitute the crime. In the case of the more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1316"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1334,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions\/1334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}