R v Kuddus
A restaurant owner was not guilty of gross negligence manslaughter of a customer with a food allergy, because a serious and obvious risk of death was not shown on the facts known to him.
Facts
Megan Lee, aged 15, ordered a takeaway from a restaurant, and the order included a note that she had a nut and prawn allergy. The meal contained peanuts, and she died from an allergic reaction. Mr Kuddus, a co-owner of the restaurant, was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter, on the basis that he was responsible for the restaurant's failure to have proper systems for dealing with allergies.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction. Applying R v Rose, the question was whether a reasonable person in Mr Kuddus's position, with the knowledge he had, would have foreseen a serious and obvious risk of death. There was no evidence that Mr Kuddus knew of Megan's order or of the allergy note, so the risk of death was not obvious to him at the relevant time. Sir Brian Leveson P said that the focus must be on the knowledge of the defendant at the time of the breach.
Related cases on involuntary manslaughter
- DPP v Newbury and Jones [1977] AC 500
- R v Adomako [1995] 1 AC 171
- 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
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