Arnold: Factual Causation

Considering Arnold’s actions, the facts show that he had purposefully poisoned his wife which led to a series of events that eventually resulted in her death. In a practical sense, it is clear that Arnold’s actions were a factual causation because he satisfies the ‘but for’ or sine qua non test as established in White . But for him putting poison into Beryl’s porridge, she would not have been admitted to hospital and she would not have later died there. Even so, to claim that he committed the actus reus of the homicide offence, it is necessary to prove it had been a legal causation and that there had been no novus actus interveniens that rendered Arnold’s act irrelevant.
The requirements for legal causation is that it must be a factual cause

Another criteria in conjunction with this is the emphasis on the notion of a free, deliberate and informed act which is reaffirmed in Kennedy by the House of Lords. In the case of Caroline, her attack on Beryl clearly satisfies all three notions. First of all, it is assumed that the act of slashing Beryl’s face was made freely and in accordance with Caroline’s free will. Secondly, it seems to be clear that Caroline had deliberately hurt Beryl, given that the language she used towards her indicates that it was a conscious and voluntary decision. Finally, it is obvious that she was informed of the consequences of her actions because she took an active part in the attack. With this said, Caroline’s actions may have the capability to act as a novus actus

The ratio decidendi for the decision in Smith was that, at the time of death, the original wound was still an operating and substantial cause. Furthermore, in Cheshire, the victim died because of a known, and perhaps foreseeable, complication in a surgery. Although in this case, the wounds were not the operative cause of death, medical intervention was not seen as an adequate defence for the defendant because it had to be ‘so independent of his acts, and in itself so potent in causing death’ . In both of these cases, it is not enough that there has been bad medical treatment. However, an exception to this is found in Jordan, where medical treatment was sufficient as a defence. In this case, the victim had been given a drug he was allergic to and there was evidence to suggest that the hospital should have known about the allergy. The court concluded that to break the causal chain medical treatment must be grossly negligent, or ‘palpably wrong’ and the original wound had virtually