R v Nedrick

R v Nedrick (1986) is an English criminal law case dealing with mens rea in murder. The case is a cornerstone as it sets down the "virtual certainty test". It applies wherever a form of indirect (oblique) intention is apparent and the charge is one of murder, or other very specific intent. The appellate court ruled, as a binding precedent, that in the law of murder there will be no case to answer where intention to offend is inferred, unless the actions of the defendant are so dangerous that death or serious injury is a virtual certainty.

R v Nedrick
CourtCourt of Appeal
Full case nameRegina v. Ransford Delroy Nedrick
Decided10 July 1986 (evidence heard on 20 May)
Citation(s)[1986] 1 WLR 1025; [1986] 3 All ER 1; 8 Cr. App. R. (S.) 179
Case history
Prior action(s)Conviction at Stafford Crown Court (trial presided by Otton J.) in January 1985
Case opinions
Per curiam (unanimously): in the law of murder there will be no case to answer where intention to offend is inferred, unless the actions of the defendant are so dangerous that death or serious injury is a virtual certainty
Court membership
Judge(s) sittingLord Lane C.J., Leggatt and Kennedy JJ. [1]
Keywords
  • oblique intention
  • murder
  • arson

Facts

The defendant poured paraffin oil through the letterbox of a house, against whose owner he had a grudge. The house burnt resulting in a child being killed.

Appellate decision reasoning

The court set down model guidance for juries in cases where intention was unclear. Lord Lane CJ said:

“Where the charge is murder and in the rare cases where the simple direction is not enough, the Jury should be directed that they are not entitled to infer the necessary intention unless they feel sure that death or serious bodily harm was a virtual certainty (barring some unforeseen intervention) as a result of the defendant's actions and that the defendant appreciated that such was the case …The decision is one for the Jury to be reached upon a consideration of all the evidence.”[2]

In summary, intent may be inferred[lower-alpha 1] if the following conditions are jointly satisfied:

  1. The result was a virtual certain consequence of an actor's conduct, and
  2. The actor knows that it is a virtually certain consequence

Notes and references
Footnotes
  1. By R v Woollin (1998), the highest criminal court replaced "infer" with "find", a verb with much wider usage, in the model direction.
Citations
  1. Index Card - case preview Incorporated Council of Law Reporting
  2. [1986] 1 W.L.R. 1025 at 1027
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