R v Adomako
The leading test for gross negligence manslaughter: a duty of care, breach, causation, and negligence so bad as to be criminal.
Facts
Dr Adomako was the anaesthetist responsible for a patient during an eye operation. During the operation, the tube supplying oxygen to the patient became disconnected. Dr Adomako did not notice the disconnection for about six minutes, by which time the patient had suffered a cardiac arrest, from which he died. Expert witnesses described his failure to notice as abysmal. He was convicted of manslaughter.
Legal principle
The House of Lords upheld his conviction. Lord Mackay LC said that the ordinary principles of the law of negligence apply to ascertain whether the defendant was in breach of a duty of care towards the victim, and whether that breach caused the death. The jury must then consider whether the breach should be characterised as gross negligence and therefore as a crime, which depends on the seriousness of the breach in all the circumstances. The essence of the matter is whether, having regard to the risk of death involved, the defendant's conduct was so bad in all the circumstances as to amount in the jury's judgment to a criminal act or omission. The House approved R v Bateman and rejected the use of the Caldwell recklessness test for manslaughter.
Related cases on involuntary manslaughter
- DPP v Newbury and Jones [1977] AC 500
- R v Bateman (1925) 19 Cr App R 8
- R v Bawa-Garba [2016] EWCA Crim 1841
- R v Cato [1976] 1 WLR 110
- R v Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings Ltd [2011] EWCA Crim 1337
- R v Dawson (1985) 81 Cr App R 150
- R v Goodfellow (1986) 83 Cr App R 23
- R v Kuddus [2019] EWCA Crim 837
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