Facts
The defendant, Latimer, aimed a blow with a belt at a man during a dispute. The blow missed the intended target and struck a woman standing nearby, causing injury. Latimer was charged with unlawfully and maliciously wounding the woman.
History
The defendant was convicted at the assizes; the trial judge reserved a question of law for the Court for Crown Cases Reserved, which upheld the conviction.
Issue
Whether the defendant's intent to cause harm to the intended victim could be transferred to the actual victim to satisfy the mens rea for malicious wounding.
Held
Appeal dismissed; conviction upheld.
Ratio
- The doctrine of transferred malice applies where the defendant intends to commit a crime against one person but commits the same crime against another; the mens rea is transferred to the actual victim.
The judgments
Queen's Bench Division (majority)
The judges were unanimous. A defendant who unlawfully and maliciously aims a blow at one person and in fact wounds another is guilty of unlawfully and maliciously wounding the person actually hit, because his malice towards the intended victim is treated as malice towards the actual victim.
Key reasoning
- The defendant's act was voluntary and accompanied by malice towards the intended victim. The harm caused was of the same type as that intended. The law treats the intent as transferring to the actual victim to avoid a gap in liability.
Obiter
- The court suggested that transferred malice might not apply if the actual harm constituted a different offence from that intended.
Where it fits in the module
This case is relevant to Topic 1 on the coincidence of actus reus and mens rea, illustrating how the law links fault to harm when the victim differs from the one intended. It is usually read with Pembliton (1874), an earlier decision in which malice towards persons did not carry over to damage to property, and alongside Thabo Meli (1954) and Church (1966) on other ways in which the courts find coincidence of act and fault.
Criticisms
- The doctrine is a legal fiction that attributes intent where none existed towards the actual victim.
- It may overextend liability when the actual harm is unforeseeable or of a different nature.
- The requirement that the harm done be of the kind intended creates arbitrary boundaries, as the earlier decision in Pembliton shows.
Written with AI (nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b) on 1 November 2026, reviewed for errors by a second model (claude-sonnet-5.5 (Claude Code reviewer)). Read the case itself at [1886] 17 QB 359. Spotted an error? Tell us.