Causation

In looking to consider whether any criminal offence has actually occurred it is generally understood that, in relation to our understanding of many crimes, harm must occur and causation needs to be proved as a result. The problem is that causation can actually prove quite difficult to prove in practice because the act in question relating to the offence may be considered to be necessary but not sufficient. Moreover, a series of events may have occurred between the initial act of the defendant and the resulting offence being perpetrated and, therefore, not sufficiently proximate, in keeping with The Wagon Mound (No 1) [1961] AC 388 for the defendant to have actually accrued liability for the offence because of the ‘novus actus interveniens’ (‘third party intervention’), aptly illustrated by decisions including R v. Cheshire (1991) 3 AER 670. Therefore, it is often considered prudent to look to the ‘but for’ test to determine where liability lies that has been somewhat supplemented by the recognition of the need to stress what a ‘reasonable person’ would understand in Yorkshire Dale Steamship Co v. Minister of War Transport [1942] AC 691.

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