R v Hancock and Shankland
The greater the probability of a consequence, the more likely it is that it was foreseen and intended, so juries must be told about probability.
Facts
During the miners' strike of 1984 to 1985, Mr Hancock and Mr Shankland, striking miners, pushed a concrete block and a post from a bridge onto a motorway as a convoy of cars took a miner who was breaking the strike to work. The block hit a taxi, killing the driver. They said that they intended only to block the road and frighten the miner, not to kill or injure anyone. The judge directed the jury using the Moloney guidelines, and they were convicted of murder.
Legal principle
The House of Lords upheld the Court of Appeal's decision to quash the murder convictions and substitute manslaughter. Lord Scarman said that the Moloney guidelines were unsafe and misleading, because they did not refer to the probability of the consequence. The jury should be told that the greater the probability of a consequence, the more likely it is that the consequence was foreseen, and if that consequence was foreseen, the greater the probability that it was also intended. Foresight of probability remains evidence of intention, not intention itself.
Related cases on mens rea
- Attorney General's Reference (No 3 of 1994) [1998] AC 245
- R v Caldwell [1982] AC 341
- R v Church [1966] 1 QB 59
- R v Cunningham [1957] 2 QB 396
- R v G [2003] UKHL 50, [2004] 1 AC 1034
- R v Latimer (1886) 17 QBD 359
- R v Le Brun [1992] QB 61
- R v Matthews and Alleyne [2003] EWCA Crim 192, [2003] 2 Cr App R 30
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