Thabo Meli v The Queen
Where the defendant's acts form a single transaction, it is enough that the mens rea existed at some point during the series of acts.
Facts
The defendants planned to kill a man. They took him to a hut, gave him beer and then hit him on the head. Believing that he was dead, they threw his body over a cliff to make it look like an accident. In fact, he had survived the blow and died later from exposure at the bottom of the cliff. The defendants argued that when they had the intention to kill, they had not killed him, and when they caused his death, they did not have the intention to kill, because they thought he was already dead.
Legal principle
The Privy Council upheld their murder convictions. Lord Reid said that it was impossible to divide up what was really one series of acts in this way. The defendants' acts formed part of a single plan and a single transaction, and it was enough that they had the intention to kill at the start of the series of acts that caused the death. The case is an important example of the single transaction approach to the coincidence of actus reus and mens rea.
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 Hancock and Shankland [1986] AC 455
- R v Latimer (1886) 17 QBD 359
- R v Le Brun [1992] QB 61
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