Attempts
criminal attempts act 1981, s1 (1)
'if, with intent to commit an offence to which this section applies, a person does an act which is more then merely preparatory to thr commission of the offence, he is guilty of attempting to commit the offence'
the four key areas for reform
1. redefining attempts into two new offences, attempts (newly defined) and criminal preparation, 2. altering the definition of attempts to include conditional attempts, 3. allowing recklessness to form part of the mens rea needed for an attempt, 4. allowing omissions to form part of the mens rea needed for an attempt crime
cases surrounding impossible attempts
Anderton v Ryan [1985], R v Shivpuri [1987], R v Jones [2007]
cases that define merely preparatory
Attorney-General's Reference No.1 [1993], R v Gullefer [1990], R v Jones [1990]
Anderton v Ryan [1985]
D buy's a video recorder for £100 from a friend, the retail price for this item was £500, D believed that it was cheap when she bought it because it was stolen, when her house was burgled her vcr was left and police asked her about it, she confessed she thought it was stolen when she bought it and was arrested and charged with handling stolen goods, HoL quashed the conviction, although going beyond merely preparatory she had not actually committed a crime despite her belief she had, this is not what parliament would have wanted from the criminal attempts act 1981.
Attorney-General's Reference No.1 [1993]
D drags the victim up some stairs after attacking her, he then pushes her down to the ground and rips off some of her clothes, D exposes himself and someone calls the police, on the officers arrival D was caught exposed and touching the victims genitals, officers said that he was flacid through the whole experience, he was arrested and charged with attempted rape, D's defence was 'I couldn't have raped her because i wasn't erect', he was found guilty of attempted rape becuase 'he had himself exposed', any point before he exposes himself it wan't attempted rape.
R v Campbell [1991]
D has a plan to rob a post office, he is stopped by police outsine the post office, he is wearing a crash helmet, has a fake gun and a note saying 'hand over the money', he is charged with attempted robbery, he was found not guilty because he would only be guilty if he had entered the propperty in full disguise, 'he hadn't embarked on the crime propper'
R v Easom [1971]
D is at the cinema watching a couple a row infront of him, she puts her handbag to one side, on seeing this D decides to go through it for something to rob, he doesnt find anything of interest, the two people were both officers and D was arrested and charged with attempted theft, for theft there has to be a 'permenant intention to deprive', d was found not guilty, this is because 'there was no intention to permanently deprive' because D didnt take anything.
R v Jones [2007]
D is based in Lewies, he graffiti's on toilet doors at train stations offering sex for money from 8-13 year olds, the police see this and a female officer calls him pretending to be a 13 year old girl, he asks to meet her and she responds reluctantly, the starts texting her explicit things and they meet up at a burger king, he is arrested and charged with 'inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity', D's defence is that he has not actually committed a crime because the person he was speaking to was over 18, D was found not guilty as Amy didn't exist but was found guilty in the CoA with regards to R v Shivpuri
R v Gullefer [1990]
D is betting at a greyhound track, he places £18 on a dog and goes to watch the race, D realises that his dog isn't going to win and runs onto the dog track, he done this so the race would be called off and D would get his money back for the void race, D is arrested on the track and didnt have the oppertunity to claim his money back, D is charged with attempted theft but is found not guilty, he has not commited the crime yet, what he has done so far is only stop the race and is merely preparatory, D would only be guilty at the point he asked for his money back.
Attorney-General Reference No.3 of 1992 [1994]
D is driving past a group of men, he didnt like them and threw a petrol bomb at them, D missed the men and the petrol bomb hits the side of a house, he is arressted and charged with attempted aggrivated arson, he was found not guilty as recklessness couldn't be used in conjunction with attempts, it was appealed to the CoA and was found guilty, he clearly had the intention to damage property and was reckless as to damage a human life
R v Shivpuri [1987
D was approached by a gang and was forced to smuggle drugs into the UK, on return D was stopped and searched by boarder control, they found a few parcels in D's suitcase and at this poin D confessed to everything, when the parcels were checked they contained a white powder, D was arrested and charged with 'being knowingly concerned in the dealing with prohibited drugs', after testing it turned out the powder was dried cabbage, nether the less D was found guilty noting the unpopularity of the anderton v ryan verdict, this was because D believed what he was doing was illegal and carried through with the act, this is enough to warrant a conviction.
R v Geddes [1996]
D was caught in the boys cubicle of a secondary school, at the time there was apolice officer on site, the officer chased after D and in the process threw his bag away, in the bag was a knife, rope, tape and some cider, D was later arrested and charged with attempted false inprisonment, originaly he was found guilty but was quashed in the HoL, 'he has not moved from the point of planning to the point of execution', 'has the defendant shown from their actions they were trying to commit the offence or that they were ready?', based on these 2 questions D is not guilty.
R v Jones [1990]
D was in a relationship with X, X decided she wanted to break up and left D, D see's X with another man not much long after, D buys a shotgun and shortens the barrell for more damage when shot, he also buys a helmet and some overalls, D follows the victim to a school with the sawn off shotgun in a bag, when the victims daughter is dropped off he gets in the car, he gets the gun out the bag and says 'you're not going to like this' whilst pointing the gun at the victim, the victims wrestles the gun off D and throws it out of the window, D is subdued and is arressted, he was found guilty of attempted murder and would be at any point from pointing the gun at the victim onwards.
R v White [1910]
D was the son and the victim in this case was his mother, D wanted to inherrit the house from his mother, he placed some cyanide into his mothers drink, not long after having some of the drink she dies, he is arrested and charged with murder, at trial it is found that she died of a heart attack and not because of the cyanide, there wasnt actually enough in the drink to kill her, because it wasn't D's actions that caused the death but D did intend to kill her the charge was changed to attempted murder and was found guilty
R v Whybrow (Arthur George) [1951]
D wired the bath of their home up as to electrocute his wife and kill her, she gets in the bath and lets out a scream, she somehow survives and D is convicted with attempted murder, the judge stated 'the intent becomes the main ingrediant of the crime'
R v Millard and Vernon [1987]
D1 and D2 are at a football match, they kept pushing on a support bar for the stand, they either; 1. wanted to break it as criminal damage, or 2. they just wanted to see if they could break it with not intention of harm. they were charged with attempted criminal damage, 'recklessness on its own is not enough but in some cases that are circumstance based recklessness could be allowed' both were found still guilty on appeal.
R v Boyle and Boyle [1987]
D1 and D2 were caught outside a house trying to break in, they already had one hinge broken on the front door, police caught them and were charged with attempted burgulary, they were found guilty because they were caught in the act of breaking in, using the gullifer test it was clear they had 'embarked' upon the crime proper, this was beyond the point of preperation.
cases that go beyond mere preperation
R v Boyle and Boyle [1987]
cases that show mere preperation
R v Geddes [1996], R v Campbell [1991]
recklessness and attempts cases
R v Millard and Vernon [1987], Attorney-General Reference No.3 of 1992 [1994]
Criminal Attempts act 1981 s.1 (2)
a person may be guilty of attempting to commit an offence to which this section applies even though the facts are such that the commission of the offence is impossible
what are attempts
attempts are defined by the 'criminal attempts act 1981' under s1 (1), it is clearly stated in the case of R v White [1910]
mens rea for attemps crimes
for any attempt crimes the same level of mens rea is required as you would need for the actuall crime itself, eg. for attempted murder you would require the the same intention to kill as with a murder sentence, R v Whybrow (Arthur George) [1951], R v Easom [1971] recklessness and attempts cases,
proposals for law changes on attempts
in 2007 the law commission were asked by the government to begin a consultation on reviewing the law in relation to conspiracy and attempts, they produced the report 'conspiracy and attempts 2009 report no.318', they uncovered 4 key areas needing reform in relation to attempts
actus reus for attempts crimes
the actus reus must be 'more then merely preparatory to the commission of the offence', defining what is more then merely preparatory is a difficult task and is often taken case by case, cases that define merely preparatory, cases that show mere preperation, cases that go beyond mere preperation
impossible attempts
these are attempts were the crime being attempted it impossible to actually commit, this was summed up in the Criminal Attempts act 1981 s.1 (2), cases surrounding impossible attempts