Hi guys, I'm Lauren and I'm one of the teachers at Newcastle Sixth Form College and in this video today I'm going to be talking to you about one of the key concepts in criminal law which is something called activist race. Now before I go into detail on what this element is, you need to understand that to be guilty of any crime, whether it be murder, robbery, theft, there are two elements that the prosecution must prove. and these are the Latin terms actus res and mens rea.
If one of these elements is missing then the prosecution will not be able to successfully prove that the defendant is guilty. Now what do those terms actually mean? So actus res means guilty act and the translation for mens rea is guilty mind. Now I'm going to give you an example of how these elements marry together. through a murder scenario.
Let's say I was sick to death of my students coming into the lessons late, failing to hand in homework and generally getting on my nerves. Now these are actual real bugbears of mine so be warned. No that is a joke.
So I decided to leave sixth form that day and that I was going to kill one of my students, okay one of the repeat offenders. A bit extreme I know. but let's go with it.
So I waited for them to leave sixth form and then I drove my car full speed ahead into them and knocked them down. Now I don't want this to be a totally morbid scenario where I go off to prison. So let's say they survived, okay? So I intended to kill the student, so I had the guilty mind, the thought process was there, intention to kill, and I also drove full speed ahead into them, which is my guilty act, okay? Another example, Which, let's give this one a morbid ending.
Could be Bob finds out his wife Susan is cheating on him, he wants to kill her, so he waits for her to come home from work, and when she gets home he hits her over the head with a hammer six times, killing her. A little bit gruesome, but this is criminal law guys. And that's how the two elements marry together. Now this doesn't just apply in murder, it is theft too. So you would need the defendant to physically take the item and then also have the intention to steal it.
OK, and that will be the Actus race and the men's race together. OK, so today I'm going to go into detail about what Actus race means and how it can be satisfied. And then Anna will be completing a follow up video about what the men's race means in a follow up video. So. So the definition of actus res is that it is an act, an omission or a state of affairs that is the prohibited conduct in an offence.
Now I'm going to come on to what an omission is in a later video. So for today we are just going to be concerned with what is an act and something called a state of affairs crime and a prohibited conduct crime and also something called consequence crime. So the types of crimes I've just listed are what a crime can be split into. So we'll start off looking at the state of affairs crime.
Now, this can be where the defendant has committed an offence simply by being something or being somewhere. Now, that sounds a little bit confusing. What does that mean? So I'm going to give you a case example. And this is the case example of larceny, which is in your handout.
And this is where a lady was an illegal immigrant and just by being an illegal immigrant, so being in a country where she was not allowed to be, she was committing a crime. So she hadn't actually done anything, she hadn't stole, she hadn't assaulted anyone, but her just being there and being an illegal immigrant was a state of affairs crime and therefore the Actors Race is satisfied. So what about conduct crimes?
Now this is where if the defendant completes the actus res, so the guilty act, then they will be guilty of the crime. So there doesn't need to be any particular consequence. There doesn't need to be an injury or anything that happens, okay? Simply by doing, you are guilty. And again, I'm going to give you an example to clarify this.
So this could be speeding, driving without insurance, okay? There doesn't need to be a consequence. So you could be speeding along a road driving 40 mile an hour in a 30 mile zone and you will be guilty.
You don't have to crash into anybody or cause any injury. Same with driving without insurance. If you're driving along and you don't have insurance, you are guilty. You don't have to cause an accident or injure anyone.
And then finally, we're going to come on to our consequence crimes. Now, this does require some action. And these crimes we see probably most commonly, as they cover all of non-fatal offences, which are a big range of offences which cover assault, Battery, something called actual bodily harm, and something called grievous bodily harm. So it's any violent offence against a person which doesn't result in death, i.e. non-fail offences. So good examples of this could be battery.
So to commit a battery, there needs to be an unlawful application of force. So if you don't physically touch anyone, then you can't be guilty of battery. Also ABH.
Okay, for section 20, there needs to be a wound. So if there is not a wound, there's not a particular injury, then you will not be guilty of this crime. Okay, and to give you a little bit more depth, I'm going to go through an example where there's one action, but there's two very different consequences, which demonstrates this quite nicely. So let's say somebody's out on a Saturday night and they are drunk and they get into a fight with somebody. so they punch them.
The punching is the action and in scenario A this person falls on the floor, hits their head, just a little bit of a bruise, nothing serious, gets back up, goes away but reports that crime. Now the consequence would be battery since there was just a little bruise, no major injury. and that is the consequence.
In scenario B when the defendant has punched this person, they have fallen over, they've cracked their skull off the pavement and they've suffered a brain haemorrhage and they've actually died. Now they're not going to be charged with battery now, they're going to be charged with something a lot more serious which is involuntary manslaughter. So you can see there's one action, two very different consequences.
therefore two very different sentences. If you're going to be charged with battery, that's a very minor crime in the Magistrates Court. If it's a first offence, probably won't justify any prison sentence. Could be a community order or fines or something like that.
Whereas involuntary manslaughter, somebody is dead, so the case is going to be in the Crown Court and it could carry a very serious sentence. Prison, between one year, you know, up to let's say seven same action two very different consequences okay so that is a consequence crime now another very important thing with actors race is this particular conduct a consequence crime okay it must cause the outcome so it must cause the death or whatever particular injury happened because if it did not and there's no causal link you then the defendant will not be guilty. So that punch must cause the brain injury and the death for the defendant to be guilty. If not, then the prosecution can't establish that.
And this causal link is something called causation, which we look at in both criminal and civil law. And it's quite a complex area. So there's going to be a follow up video. separately to this to explain that to you.
I hope you found that useful and you now have an understanding of what Actis Race is. I will be completing a follow-up video on admissions. See you then!