Criminal Law

Criminal Law Cases You Actually Need for the SQE

The cases that keep appearing in SQE1 criminal law questions, with the exact tests examiners want you to apply.

The SQE1 criminal law questions are not asking you to write essays. They give you a short scenario and want you to apply a specific legal test to specific facts. That means the cases matter less as historical curiosities and more as sources of precise, testable rules. Get the rule wrong, and it doesn't matter how much you know about the background.

Here is what you actually need, offence by offence.

Mens Rea: The Foundation Cases

Before you can tackle specific offences, you need to be solid on the building blocks of fault.

Intention: R v Woollin [1999] AC 82

Direct intention is not complicated. The defendant wants the result. The exam scenarios that trip students up involve oblique intention, where the defendant does not desire the outcome but brings it about anyway.

Woollin gives you the test. The jury is not entitled to find intention unless death or serious bodily harm was a virtual certainty as a result of the defendant's actions, and the defendant appreciated that it was. Both limbs matter. Virtual certainty is an objective question. Appreciation is subjective.

In a scenario, look for facts like: defendant throws a baby across a room in frustration and the baby dies. Death may not have been desired, but was it a virtual certainty? Did the defendant appreciate that? Work through both questions explicitly.

Recklessness: R v G [2003] UKHL 50

This case reversed Caldwell and restored subjective recklessness as the standard for criminal damage and, by extension, most offences requiring recklessness. The defendant must have been aware of an unjustifiable risk and gone ahead anyway.

The SQE will test whether you can spot the difference between a defendant who genuinely did not see the risk (no recklessness) and one who saw it and dismissed it (reckless). The two boys in R v G who started a fire without appreciating the risk to property are the paradigm case. They were not reckless because they did not perceive the danger.

Homicide

Murder and manslaughter generate more SQE scenarios than almost any other area. The reason is that the line between them depends on fine distinctions of fact and law.

The Mens Rea of Murder

Murder requires an intention to kill or cause grievous bodily harm. That second limb catches students out. A defendant who intends serious harm but does not want death can still be guilty of murder if death results. Apply Woollin if the defendant claims they did not intend either outcome.

Loss of Control: Coroners and Justice Act 2009, ss 54-56

The old common law defence of provocation was replaced by loss of control under the 2009 Act. Three conditions must be satisfied:

1. The defendant lost self-control.
2. The loss of control had a qualifying trigger (fear of serious violence, or circumstances of an extremely grave character that caused the defendant to have a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged).
3. A person of the defendant's sex and age with a normal degree of tolerance and self-restraint might have reacted in the same or a similar way.

Key point: the loss of control does not have to be sudden. That was a requirement under the old law and students often import it incorrectly. Also, the defence is not available where the defendant incited the trigger as an excuse to use violence.

Gross Negligence Manslaughter: R v Adomako [1994] 3 WLR 288

Adomako is the leading case for gross negligence manslaughter. The test has four elements:

1. The defendant owed the victim a duty of care.
2. That duty was breached.
3. The breach caused death.
4. The negligence was so gross that it should be judged criminal.

The circularity in the fourth element is intentional and has survived challenges. In an SQE scenario, you'll typically see a professional context: a doctor, anaesthetist, or someone in a position of responsibility. Ask whether a duty existed, then work through the breach and causation before asking whether the jury would regard the conduct as grossly negligent.

Unlawful Act Manslaughter

The elements here come from a line of cases including R v Church [1966] 1 QB 59:

1. An unlawful act.
2. That act must be dangerous (objectively, in the sense that a sober and reasonable person would recognise it as creating a risk of some harm to another person).
3. The act caused death.
4. The defendant had the mens rea for the unlawful act.

Note: "some harm" is the threshold, not serious harm. This catches defendants who cause death through relatively minor unlawful acts. Drug supply scenarios appear regularly. Supplying a drug is the unlawful act; the question is whether the chain of causation is broken by the victim's free act of self-injection. R v Kennedy (No 2) [2007] UKHL 38 held that it usually is, so be careful before assuming the supplier is automatically liable for a death by overdose.

Theft and Dishonesty

Theft Act 1968 is heavily tested. The definition of theft under s.1 has five elements:

1. Appropriation
2. Of property
3. Belonging to another
4. With the intention to permanently deprive
5. Dishonestly

Each element has its own case law and each can be a separate question.

Appropriation: R v Hinks [2000] UKHL 53

Appropriating property does not require any unlawful act toward the owner. In Hinks, the defendant received valid gifts from a vulnerable man she had befriended. The House of Lords held she could still be guilty of theft because appropriation under s.3(1) includes any assumption of the rights of an owner, even where the owner consents.

This is a conceptually uncomfortable decision and examiners know it. Expect a scenario where a defendant receives something voluntarily handed over and you have to confirm that appropriation can still occur.

Dishonesty: Ivey v Genting Casinos [2017] UKSC 67

This is the case that changed everything for dishonesty. The old Ghosh test had a subjective second limb: did the defendant himself think his conduct was dishonest by ordinary standards? The Supreme Court in *Ivey v Genting Casinos* swept that away.

The test now is:

1. What was the defendant's actual subjective knowledge or belief as to the facts?
2. Given that knowledge or belief, was the conduct dishonest by the objective standards of ordinary decent people?

The defendant's own view of whether they were behaving dishonestly is irrelevant at stage two. A professional card counter who genuinely believed what he was doing was legitimate was still found to have acted dishonestly by ordinary standards.

*R v Ghosh* is still worth knowing because examiners may use it as a distractor in an MCQ, presenting it as the current test. It is not. Ivey is the current test.

Intention to Permanently Deprive: R v Lloyd [1985] QB 829

Borrowing something is not theft unless the borrowing is for a period and in circumstances making it equivalent to an outright taking. In Lloyd, taking films temporarily to copy them and then returning them was not theft because the items were returned with all their value intact.

Contrast this with a scenario where a defendant takes a train ticket, uses it, and returns the paper. The goodness has been exhausted. That may satisfy the intention to permanently deprive.

Robbery and the Force Question

Robbery under s.8 Theft Act 1968 requires theft plus force, or the threat of force, immediately before or at the time of stealing, in order to steal.

"Force" is interpreted broadly. *R v Dawson* is the classic case here. The defendants nudged a victim to make him lose his balance while another took his wallet. The Court of Appeal held that whether a nudge constitutes force is a matter for the jury, applying the ordinary meaning of the word. Force does not require violence in the conventional sense.

In an SQE scenario, do not assume force requires a punch or a shove. Even minimal physical contact applied to a person to facilitate the theft is capable of being force.

Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person

The hierarchy of offences under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Criminal Justice Act 1988 is tested constantly. Get the mens rea right for each level.

| Offence | Section | Actus reus | Mens rea | |---|---|---|---| | Battery | CJA 1988 s.39 | Unlawful force | Intention or recklessness | | ABH | OAPA 1861 s.47 | Assault or battery causing ABH | Intention or recklessness as to the assault/battery | | GBH/wounding | OAPA 1861 s.20 | Wounding or GBH | Intention or recklessness as to some harm | | GBH with intent | OAPA 1861 s.18 | Wounding or GBH | Intention to cause GBH |

The jump from s.20 to s.18 is entirely about mens rea. Same physical harm, completely different offence. R v Parmenter [1992] 1 AC 699 confirmed that for s.20, the defendant need only foresee that some harm might result, not serious harm.

For s.47, the mens rea does not extend to the ABH itself. The defendant only needs to intend or be reckless as to the assault or battery. The ABH is treated as a consequence that elevates the offence without needing to be foreseen.

Defences

Self-Defence and s.76 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008

The statutory codification under s.76 does not change the common law significantly, but it does clarify two things examiners test:

• A defendant who makes an honest mistake about the facts can rely on self-defence based on the facts as they believed them to be, even if the belief was unreasonable. Unreasonableness is relevant only to whether the jury believes the belief was genuinely held.
• The level of force must be reasonable in the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be. Grossly disproportionate force will not be reasonable.

Intoxication

Voluntary intoxication is not a defence to crimes of basic intent (DPP v Majewski [1977] AC 443). It can be relevant to crimes of specific intent, but only to negate the mens rea actually required. A reckless mistake made because of voluntary intoxication is no defence to a basic intent offence because the recklessness in getting drunk substitutes.

Involuntary intoxication can be a defence, but only if it negates mens rea entirely. If the defendant would have done the same thing sober, the defence fails.

How to Use These in SQE1 Questions

SQE1 criminal law questions are scenario-based single best answer MCQs. The most common error is identifying the right area of law but applying the test loosely. The examiner will often give you four options that all sound plausible and only one that correctly applies the precise legal test.

For dishonesty questions, always apply Ivey in two steps. Write them out in your head before you pick an answer. For intention in murder, ask whether Woollin applies and work through both limbs. For unlawful act manslaughter, check causation carefully before assuming the defendant caused the death.

You can explore the full case library for criminal law to read the judgments directly, and practise with real SQE1 questions to test whether you can actually apply these rules under exam conditions.