hello everybody and welcome back to criminal law in this lesson we are moving away from talking about the actus Reus elements of a crime so we're moving away from looking at the concept of voluntariness of criminal conduct the idea of causation the idea of Acts versus omissions etc etc etc and we're going to start to talk about the next major component of criminal liability which is of course the component which is the men's rayer of an offense now we'll take an introduction to the concept of men's rayer in this lesson before looking the concepts of intention recklessness negligence and also strict liability for offenses um in future lessons time so the next major component of criminal liability is that of the men's rayer as a basic recap Criminal liability for the majority of offenses I will have to preface this that there are certain exceptions where there is a difficulty in being able to delineate actus race and men's rare in some cases uh and also where there are men's rare uh where the mraa is not necessary to prove criminal liability in other cases but for the most part when we think about criminal liability specifically for a lot of the more serious offenses in fact um the components which are required have to be the actus race of an offense the guilty act that is required for any offense because you have to have done something essentially which gives rise to criminal liability then there is also the men's rare and then we have to think about the lack of a valid defense for um the action and the conduct and this will therefore give rise to criminal liability we focused already on the actus Ry element uh actus Reus element sorry um now we're going to talk about the men's Rey in more detail so we can broadly Define or at least try to translate men Rea to Define it as quote guilty mind the guilty mind of the defendant in the conduct of an offense um when we explore this with reference to the actual application of it to the criminal law it's probably better to refer to it as the quote mental element of of an offense okay because um guilty mind can uh can be a little bit restrictive in terms of the different ways in which it can be applied because guilty mind does not necessarily um give us a good definition in reference to things like recklessness or negligence um but the mental element of a def of an offenses is probably a more apt and Broad enough conceptualization of the idea of men's rea when we look at showing the men's rer proving men's Raya just like with other elements of criminal liability the burden as you would probably imagine is on the prosecution to show that there is men the the prerequisite men's rer of the defendant so beginning first then men's Rea can exist in a number of different conceptions the first way we can think about men's Rea is as as described as intent or an intention so the men's Reay of an offense is not the the intention to commit the offense per se uh so when we think about intention it might not even be the intention to commit an offense but it could be the intention to bring about certain circumstances by which the offense is therefore committed so the characteristic of a men's reyer to commit an offense is a bit too restrictive okay the intentionality element of the men's reyer refers more to the intention to bring about some event or to bring about some cause so when we look at murder for example um you can have the act of Reus which which would of course be the Act of Killing an individual or uh admitting to do something which leads to an individual dying but intention does not necessarily mean there is an intent to kill an individual to murder there is not necessarily an intention to murder because that would be too restrictive there may be an intention to bring about a certain set of circumstances which ultimately leads to the death of a victim which may be for example to bring about Grievous bodily harm for example exle so intention is a little bit more Broad in the sense that it is not necessarily an intention to commit the offense in question although in some cases it may be required that there is an an intention to commit the offense in question but in some cases it is also the case that mrea refers to an intention to bring about some event or to bring about some cause which may lead to the event in question taking place giving rise to criminal liability the mendr of an offense may also depending on the relate to a level of recklessness we'll get to the idea of subjective recklessness in future lessons time um but again this will also depend on the offens in question that we are talking about so recklessness uh can can be can be brought about in a number of different ways and we'll talk about some interesting cases where um this is defined and the idea of recklessness is something that is uh quite um has been has gone back and forth shall we say um throughout various different cases in the common law and has been overruled in in in various cases but ultimately we have what is more definitively a quite substantial definition of what recklessness refers to now U we'll get like I've said we'll get to that in future lessons time don't you worry one of the things that law students often may uh be caught up on and in fact just the general public might be caught up on when it comes to proving men's Rea is essentially how do prove men Rea how can you prove um the mental element of an offense um because essentially what we're trying to do is you're trying to attempt to make claims about the internal thought processes of an individual we don't have direct evidence of what an individual is actually thinking at the time at which they are doing performing the action itself or or at least for the most part we don't we don't have that direct evidence so how is it the case that we prove intention how is it the case that we prove men's rare well ultimately the prosecution is not burdened with the task of trying to show directly a specific mental state uh or at least they they are not they are not given the task of having to to show um completely and utterly what that person was actually thinking at the time because of course that would be impossible we can't know what people are thinking at any time in any circumstance so to show that would be quite a significant burden on the prosecution but rather they want to show um through various different um elements of circumstantial evidence that a jury would be able to infer intent from the relevant evidence itself so can intent be inferred given the circumstances given the mindset at the time that we can know about and given all of the facts of the circumstances um uh as described as relevant evidence can that therefore be inferred rather than be direct directly proven um you know 100% of the time now Section 8 of the criminal justice Act of 1967 outlines this quite interestingly um they talk about the proof of Criminal Intent and what it says is a court or jury in determining whether a person has committed an offense shall not be bound in law to infer that he intended or foresaw a result of his actions by reason only of its being a natural and probable consequence of those actions but shall decide whether he did intend or foresee that result by reference to all of the evidence drawing such inferences from the evidence as appear proper in the circumstances so you are not bound to try and prove uh that the person was able to foresee or intend a particular result um by the actions but given all of the factual circumstances given all of the evidence in the case itself draw on such inferences from said evidence to appear proper in the circumstances to infer that kind of level of intentionality or recklessness or negligence these are things that we have to show when we are proving men's Ry and so uh that's ultimately the burden of the prosecution in doing so it is not such a heavy burden such as to try and read an individual's mind but it is a burden which would require um a certain amount of evidence to essentially infer from the conduct infer from the factual Circ IR ances infer from all of the relevant context of a particular case in question in the previous lesson what we did was introduce the subject of men's Rea for the purposes of criminal law and we noted that men's Rea can be uh shown it can be um essentially um essentially brought about through either the uh examination of Criminal Intent we can talk about recklessness and to an extent we can talk about negligence as well this lesson is going to begin with the first of these of course which is this idea of Criminal Intent intent to commit a crime or intent to bring about some kind of outcome which results in the committing of a crime and so this is essentially our study into men's Rea in and its component parts in more detail um we'll talk about conceptualizing uh an understanding of Criminal Intent in this lesson and we will look at various different pieces of case law that exemplifies how Criminal intent is operated and how Criminal Intent is viewed in the context of uh the the criminal law specifically so intention in criminal law is often colloquially described as a major component of the men's rare of of an offense um if we are thinking of people who may be non- lawyers and maybe have never studied criminal law you might think that well crimes require intent they require you to intend to commit a crime or to do do a bad thing in order for you to be held criminally liable well what does that actually mean how do we actually quantify and qualify the idea of what intent actually refers to generally um we will take uh the idea of Criminal Intent or the the idea of intention to have its ordinary meaning so when there are cases that involve the idea of intent the jury will be directed to take intention as its ordinary meaning and to make a judgment on the basis of intention as an ordinary as an ordinary way in which you might describe it and this example can be seen in 1985 in the case of crown and Maloney uh ultimately what happens in this case is you have a stepfather and a stepson um the two had a very close relationship they were they were for all intents and purposes very very close um to each other and they had entered into a shooting Contra uh contest sorry and one of the things that they they did while doing this shooting contest was uh seeing which one could draw their guns quicker like a sort of um like a western kind of uh game that they that they played um one of the problems is that they did this while they were drunk so of course their inhibitions were not particularly um sound and so as a result of which the um stepfather was shot and killed now so we have the death of an individual and the question that we have to ask is whether or not the actions by the defender was an intention to kill his father-in-law so did the individual in question did the defendant actually uh intend to shoot and kill his father-in-law or was it an accident okay and it was held the um conviction itself was of for murder but it was ultimately reduced and overturned and um turned into manslaughter uh the reason why is because the House of Lords wanted to clarify and sought to clarify the issue of intent within the the criminal law in order for a person to be convicted of murder they must have an intention to kill or cause Grievous bodily harm and so the Lords made the argument that foresight of the consequences um in and of itself without the direct intention is not sufficient for a conviction of murder so the argument that they try to present against the defendant was that um they may have had the foresight that this could have happened owing to the fact that they were drunk to the fact that they were messing around with with lethal weapons um this could have led to um an individual being shot and killed or shot or and severely wounded but this idea of foresight this idea of seeing uh potentially the the consequences of these actions uh before they happen is not the same as a direct intention it is not the same of in as intending to do something and so as a result of which that is insufficient for murder you cannot be convicted for murder on the basis of your foreseeing some consequences but not actually intending to do them it was made clear that the key consideration should be the defendant's purpose and whether there was an intention to bring about a specific result and whether or not this specific result therefore leads to criminal liability so of course we know that for a person to be convicted of murder it is an intention to kill or cause Grievous bodily harm so the intention in this regard would be to bring about the specific result which is to kill the stepfather or to cause Grievous bodily harm to The Stepfather which ultimately physically uh end up um being uh murder in the sense that the Grievous bodily harm would ultimately kill the individual that's how that's how that um part of intent operates similarly in the case of hman the director of public prosecutions we see that a defendant was in a relationship with with with a man and um when this relationship ended the defendant became increasingly jealous of her ex's new partner and fiance so man and a woman in a relationship man breaks up or they break up to uh they break up uh the man gets into a new relationship with um a new person um proposes uh to that new person becomes um engaged to that new person or while the defendant was incredibly jealous of all of the things that had taken place all of the ex's new partner and her and her F his fiance sorry as a result of this jealousy um she would then go and pour petrol into her new partner's letter box and set it a light the resulting fire would end up killing her uh the new partner's two young children the defendant was tried for murder and the issues that we have to think about here is whether or not there was this intent question of whether or not the defendant could be convicted of murder since she didn't have the intent to kill the two children when performing the act in question the jury could convict on murder of murder and the House of Lords actually upheld this conviction and you might be thinking why well the jury could convict a murder and the upholding of the conviction was for a number of reasons and all of these reasons hinged on whether the or not the defendant knew it was probable that her children were in the house at the time of the act and so when it comes to this kind of foresight when it becomes so obvious in terms of foreseeability that this harm um is going to take place and as a result of which it leads to a situation whereby um the defendant acts anyway and causes about brings about this brings about this problem the House of Lords makes the argument that this um probability um was um essentially the reasons why the conviction was upheld now in 1999 the case of crown and Woolen um is very similar the in a fit of rage the defendant would kill his 3month old son by throwing bring him into a hard surface okay so U OB as you can see not a particularly Pleasant individual or set of circumstances but at the trial level the judge directed The Jury to convict if they were uh of the mind that the defendant realized the quote substantial risk in the action committed by the defendant by themselves so if they realize that there was a substantial risk in hitting the baby against uh against this hard surface in killing the child um that therefore would um be a re a prerequisite requirement and therefore conditional on whether or not murder can be a a valid conviction this was overturned and the conviction was reduced to manslaughter the reason why is because the trial judge was incorrect to direct the jury in this way by suggesting that the standard by which we measure intent in this case is the question of whether or not there was quote substantial risk what this does is confuse intention with recklessness which ultimately delineates murder and manslaughter in the first place so by confusing intention and Ne and recklessness you're confusing murder and manslaughter um two very significantly different um crimes and so as a result of which um they they struck down this idea of substantial risk because that was getting too close to the idea of recklessness which would be ultimately getting too close to manslaughter and if you can flate murder and manslaughter then they both become meaningless the jury must um instead ask three questions relating to the issue at hand the first question is is the result for which criminal liability exists one which was virtually sorry virtually a certain consequence of the actions of the defendant did the defendant um in his action um know that it would be virtually uh certain consequence um given the evidence would the jury be s satisfied with the finding of intent those are the three questions that are asked when it comes to uh in this case at least when it comes to the finding of intentionality for the purposes of men's Rea um specifically when we're talking uh as you know here we have been focusing specifically on um on murder cases so that's what the jury was asked to consider when it came to making a determination as to whether or not murder was applicable in our continuation of the conversation relating to men's rare when going to move on from looking at Criminal Intent to starting to look at the concept of recklessness so we remember from the previous lesson that the major components of men's rare um involve mainly in fact a a a an intention in some regards in some offenses so so there is this Criminal Intent that is required but in other cases there is this idea of recklessness that you can that you can essentially perform and be able to satisfy the men's rayer requirement for certain offenses um with the idea of recklessness now um simply put we can Define reck recklessness in a very specific way it says that to be Reckless is to Simply take an unjustified risk which in conjunction with the actus Reus gives rise to criminal liability so remember that in all of these instances and in all of these examples there has to be uh an actus R element there also has to be a coincidence of actus Reus and men's Rea for the most part so you have to actually perform the ACT Rayes while also having the prerequisite men's rare but the prerequisite men's rare can also be defined through this idea of recklessness to take an unjustified risk and to knowingly take an unjustified risk so essentially what we do is we look at recklessness and we say that recklessness can be defined by looking at the defendant and seeing if the defendant had for seen a risk of harm being caused and then given that fact still decided to act in that particular way so a defendant must be able to have seen the unforeseen risk um they they sorry they must have been able to see the risk and this is an unjustified risk and they must have still been able to make the decision and decided to perform the action in that way so that's essentially what recklessness is let's think about how it is applied in certain pieces of leg in certain pieces of case law should I say um in the case of crown and Cunningham from 1957 we have a defendant who steals a gas meter from The Cellar of a house and in doing so they were so violent at least in in trying to get this gas meter from the Celler of the house that they had inadvertently fractured a gas pipe in the process now it was shown that this was not intentional they didn't intentionally you um damage the gas pipe but the result would be that gas would leak into the into the property and the victim would inhale that gas and it would cause them to become quite seriously ill they were actually uh charged with a violation of the offenses against the person act specifically section 23 which is a relatively minor piece of um of the legisl or at least provision of the legislation because it relates specifically to the uh causing of an inhalation of toxic or noxious gas or material it was held that the judge um ultimately directed The Jury that the concept of maliciously um in the charge that was cited the charge that was cited specifically is section 23 which is uh maliciously administering poison which is what the the title of that that that provision actually is and that the meaning of the word maliciously meant doing something which he has no business to do and perfectly well knows it uh that is what the judge directs the jury to Define maliciously as as being and as you can see here that you have a sort of definition of recklessness if you will will um you see that they are doing something that they shouldn't be doing but there is also that they are doing it with the knowledge and perfect knowledge that they are of of their of their actions which sort of fits into our definition of recklessness because we know that recklessness is doing something where we can see the risks the risks are unjustified but we're still doing it anyway it is sort of similar so where there is re reference to this idea of maliciousness in an offense like in section 2 three of the offenses against the person act the jury should be directed to determine whether or not the defendant had foreseen the harm that was caused and then still acted anyway so they they knew about the calm that was been that could have been caused they knew that it was unjustified and unjustified risk but they still went ahead and carried on with the act that they were doing the case of crown and Caldwell from 1982 gives us a distinction between an objective and a subjective account of recklessness now the facts of this case are as follows the defendant had gotten drunk and then goes and sets fire to a hotel um as you do when you're drunk um he then plad guilty for reckless arson under section one subsection one of the criminal damage Act of of 1971 but he then challenged the second of the charges he challenged the reckless endangerment charge because on the basis on the basis of the fact that he was so drunk he did not think of others when he was committing the acts themselves and there is almost a bit of a requirement here with reckless endangerment that you have to um not only commit the reckless endangerment you have to do the unjustified risk you have to do so knowing of the risk that you could um be imposing on others and he argued that I can't have been charged with that because I was so drunk that I could not um actually uh even perceive or think about others when committing the act that I did that is the idea behind this essential um uh challenge uh the argument was rejected on the basis that recklessness also includes failing to give any thought to whether or not there is any such risk in circumstances where if any thought were given to the matter it would be obvious that there was that's really where we see um something of a broadening of the idea of recklessness in this case now what we should note is that this was a case that is overturned um in the 2003 case of R&G andr um by the House of Lords so in this case very similar to the previous case you have the defendants who had set fire to some newspapers in a in a shop housee um so quite similar in the sense that we're talking about arson um ultimately what this did was lead to the burning down of the supermarket itself again the defendants were charged under section one of the 1971 criminal uh damage act uh for reckless aren and it was held uh in overturning the case of Caldwell the House of Lords made it very clear that an individual is acting recklessly under the following conditions and these are the following conditions or the following circumstances which solidifies the law pertaining to recklessness to this day um part one is that he is aware that a risk will exist part two when the defendant is aware sorry is aware that a risk will occur it is unreasonable for the defendant to take said risk and so as a result of which you have the knowledge that exists in the sense that there is an awareness that there is a risk but there's also the unreason ability of the risk okay so a person is acting in a way which is risky but is more than just risky it is risky to an unreasonable extent and that the defendant is aware that it is unreasonable it is um clearly an unreasonable risk and he still carries on and performs the action anyway that's where we get the concept of acting recklessly and for the purposes of um these pieces of legislation welcome back everybody to criminal law in this lesson we're going to talk about the idea of transferred malice which is a principle which is found within the broader context of the men's rare of an offense and which arises in certain circumstances and in certain cases and we'll explore some of those cases in this lesson ultimately the concept of transferred malice refers to very very specific situations as I've mentioned it's it's it's a limited principle which is applied but it refers to specific situations where an individual may have the men's rayer for an offense and let's say they have the men's rayer for an offense which intends to harm an individual X but the defendant um for whatever reasons maybe through mistake or maybe through an accident actually causes harm or damage to another individual a victim V so let's say if the defendant has a gun pointed at another person the person X but intends to shoot X but misses and accidentally hits V instead now the reason why transferred malice is important is because on that basis without transferred malice you could make the argument that the defendant is not guilty because the defendant didn't have the intent to shoot um the the the individual V and so there isn't this Coincidence of men's Ry and actus Rees because they didn't intend to shoot uh another individ ual ex so there may be at least a reduced liability in the sense that they may be um may not be expressly um convicted for whatever a particular offense that may be whether that be murder for example well the idea of um liability in this case has to be uh uh understood through the concept of transferred malice because the mrea for the offense which isn't committed in this case um has to then be transferred because the men Raa for the offense is for the defendant to shoot the Vic uh to shoot the uh person X okay so he intends to shoot X and so therefore the men Rea is the intention to shoot X however if the then misses and shoots V instead what the principle of transferred malice tells us is that we can transfer that intent to the victim instead of to X so as a result of which the mraay for the offense which isn't committed can be transferred to the other unintended victim for the offense which ultimately is um committed instead it therefore means that just because the defendant did not intend to harm the victim they intended to harm somebody else a third party that doesn't allow them to escape liability for in for harming the victim because the malice that is intended in the harming of the third party is transferred to the ACT which is the harming of the victim that's ultimately what transferred malice tells us now there are some a couple of cases that are quite important in this area of the law um the first one being the 18 1986 case of crown and latima uh what happens in this case is that you have a middle uh you have a fight in the middle of a fight um and the defendant in this fight went to hit uh the third party the person who he was fighting with his belt however they would ultimately Miss and instead severely injure a woman um who was just a a a a a bystander ultimately but became the victim in this case so the person who was intend intend to receive um the hit from the belt uh becomes the third party and the person who is actually hit is the injured um woman who is the bystander who becomes the victim what happens here is of course the defendant is convicted for maliciously wounding the victim and the issue here is whether or not there was the men's reer if there wasn't this men's reer to hit the victim which there wasn't because the uh defendant misses and accidentally hits the woman can they be guilty for the offense of of maliciously wounding the victim it's held that yes this is the case because the transferred malice principle has to apply so as such the even though there isn't this intent there isn't an intent to hit the victim specifically there is an intent to hit a third party and then the missing of that transfers the malice over to the victim instead and this is what they say about it they say that it is common knowledge that a man who has an unlawful and malicious intent against another and in attempting to carry it out injures a third party is guilty of what the law deems malice against the person injured because the offender is doing the unlawful act and has that which the judges calls General malice is enough and this General malice can almost be pointed and directed into whatever victim is actually um established in a particular factual set of circumstances a further case that illustrates this purpose and actually interestingly illustrates a very strange conception of the law is the case of R and and and nango from 201 this was a case which involved a gunfight which exists and takes place between two people you have the defendant and you have another individual X and the individual X had accidentally shot and killed an unintended victim okay so let's just make this very very clear you have a defendant who is in a shooting fight shootout with a third party the third party X in the process of this shootout of this gunfight X then goes and shoots accidentally an unintended victim okay now the question of the courts in this case was could the defendant in this case who was being shot at by the third party who's being shot at by the person who shoots the unintended victim could they be charged as a party to the crime by aiding and abetting the murder of the passerby even though they're on the other side of the gunfight can the idea of transferred malice therefore mean that a the the third party the person who is defined here as X is liable we know that will be the case already because they accidentally shoot and kill an unintended victim but Can the defendant also be viable viable sorry liable for for aiding in a betting for being a party to the crime um or or for participating in the offense and it was held that under the basis of transferred malice um the defendant can be found guilty of murder as an accessory because there was no common law rule which suggested that a a that an individual a defendant cannot be guilty for aiding and abetting a crime where he himself was the intended victim ultimately the defendant was the intended victim because they were in a gunfight he was in a gunfight with this individual X so he was the intended victim but X misses and shoots at somebody else shoots an somebody else an unintended victim um and so ultimately what happens here is they then get the on the basis of transferred malice X becomes liable for the murder of this other victim but then the defendant ultimately should also have um some kind of liability for aiding in the betting for being a party to the crime by having the gunfight in the first place in this final lesson talking about the concept of actress Reyes and men's Rea for a we're going to talk about the idea of strict liability offenses um these are going to be important because we're going to come across them at multiple points in our series here on criminal law we're also going to come across them at multiple points in our in an upcoming series that we're going to do on road traffic law as well um and ultimately they are important in the sense that U we need to identify how strict liability operates before we can then apply it to specific offenses so for example there are certain strict liability offenses that exist uh within um the sexual offenses act which we'll get to of course in future lessons time but ultimately like I've said this is a final lesson on the nature of criminal liability as well as the core components of a crime we're going to move on from this in the next lesson and start talking about participation in criminal activity um specifically I.E parties to a crime we're going to talk about the circumstances where the where the men's reare for an offense is not necessary for a conviction of a defendant this refers to the implications for strict liability now a crime which is of strict liability is one where there is an actus Rayes for the offense but it does not necessarily have attached to it a men's Rare Element that is the distinction that we have for the most part criminal offenses require there being an actus Reus and a coincidence to that with the men's rare there has to be a coincidence of actors rares and men's rare but with strict liability there does not necessarily have to have this attached men's Rea element they are almost entirely bound today in statutary Provisions so for the vast majority of cases where we're talking about strict liability they are no longer common law offenses they are for the most part um for statutory offenses it also means that whereas with nonstrict liability offenses the prosecution must show that the defendant had a prerequisite men's reare either through intent recklessness or negligence with strict liability on the other hand there is no such requirement for the necessary uh to be necessary for the defendant to be found guilty so let's think about how strict liability operates because it has been a difficult position for the courts to essentially try and do without men's reyer uh and to establish a strict liability through the wording of a piece of statutary provision because the default position is that for the courts to maintain an assumption of men's reer and so it means that the basic pos position that is that is required is that men's rare be necessary and that it is a requirement um for strict liability to be found for the displacement of the Assumption of men's Ry um and this requires a number of stages so the way in which we find strict liability is therefore where we assume men's R are ultimately at the beginning of the process and then owing to certain circumstances we may be able to displace the men's rayer assumption to establish a strict liability offense now these requirements are set out in the case of gamon and the Attorney General of Hong Kong from 1985 the facts of this case are as follows it involves a number of defendants who were all involved in the construction of a building in Hong Kong and the construction uh ultimately will be uh done where we see a deviation or a quote substantial deviation from the approved plan on the construction uh itself and so as a result of that the construction of the building um would ultimately the building itself should I say would ultimately collapse as a result of the fact that there was a substantially Dev a substantial deviation in the approving uh from the approved plans now for for reference for those of you who want to know specifically um the the charge of substantial deviation from the approved plans which leads to the collapsing of the building was contrary to uh section 42ab and section 42 BB of the Hong Kong or uh building ordinance um that's for the most part you probably wouldn't need to know that I I but I've added that in there just for a specific citation now the defendants argued that they had no knowledge that they were deviating from the approved plan and they was deviating so much that this would fall into the category of substantially deviating and therefore enter into the realm of um deviation from um the the law from and violation of the law essentially deviating from the Hong Kong building ordinance now it was ultimately held by the privy Council on appeal um that there was no need to show the mrea for the defendants to be convicted so even though the argument on the part of the defendants was we had no knowledge of this we had no men's Ray of this offense therefore we cannot be convicted on a basis because there has to be mrea the uh appeal said No in fact it is not the case that that is a requirement in fact there is no need to show Mena for this particular offense this is a strict liability offense and then upon um that was the determination of the of the court of the privy Council but then on uh doing so they also wanted to set out the key stages for making determinations as to the nature of strict liability and so there are two main requ requirements the first requirement is to ultimately begin all proceedings by assuming that men's rer exists so if you have a statutory provision if you have a a a building ordinance or if you have something that is passed by parliament or delegated legislation or whatever that is um that is creating an offense it is creating a criminal offense okay and the question of whether or not the from the wording of the legislation this criminal offense requires men's Ry um the courts Begin by assuming just from the basis that there is men's rare there is a presumption of men's rare okay so to show Criminal liability you have to negate the presumption of men's Ry um in in showing so so just like stated earlier this is the default position of a court the default position of the court is that the men's rare for an offense is required and then it is up to the prosecution to show that the defendant had the necessary men's rare for the conviction of the offense and so to find uh strict liability this has to be displaced there has to be a displacement of the presumption of men's rare it must be necessary as an implication from the reading of the specific provision and the nature of this presumption may also change depending on the offense being charged so you will have the fact that for example minor offenses um will likely have the carrying of a strict liability attachment compared to more serious offenses okay so that's the first question that we have to ask we have to firstly assume menra exists and presume that we have a men's R requirement for this offense and so the next question is how is it displaced well when we displace men's Raya and we get the imposition of strict liability it has to be to be effective to promote the objects of the statute by encouraging greater vigilance to prevent the commission of the prohibited act and this is the requirement for men's rer in that regard so we will get back to um strict liability in future but this is the test that is required you have to first presume men's rer exists and only displace men's rer if it is effective to promote the objects of the statute by encouraging greater vigilance to prevent the commission of the prohibited act okay that are the two those are the that's the two-stage test for establishing strict liability and like I've said we will get back to this in future lessons when we actually apply strict Li to strict liability offenses themselves