Jai Narain Vyas University

LAW FOR CRIMES

Actus Reus and Mens Rea

Submitted To Submitted By
Mrs. Nidhi Sharma
SakunjayVyas
BBA.LL.B. Vth SEM

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 INDEX
S.no. PARTICULARS Page no.
1 Acknowledgement 3
2 Introduction 4-5
3 Actus Reus 6-10
4 Mens Rea 11-13
5 Conclusion 14
6 Bibliography 15

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 Acknowledgement
I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my Law of Crimes
teacher Mrs. Nidhi Sharma ma’am for their able guidance and support in
completing my project on topic, “Actus Reus and Mens Rea”. This project gave
me an opportunity to learn and explore more about the aforementioned
subject.

Then I would like to thank my parents and my classmates for helping me

throughout the project.

Sakunjay Vyas

BBA LlB V th Semester

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INTRODUCTION: CONCEPT OF CRIME
Crime and immorality are related to each other. In ancient groups these crimes emerges
out of the feeling that conduct that offended the immortal threatened the common security.
Crime is a dynamic concept, dependent upon the social development of a people that is
upon the fundamental interests and values dominating their common beliefs.
To understand the origins of criminal law four theories have been discussed regarding the
origins of criminal law. These theories are namely, civil wrong, social wrong, moral wrong
and group conflict theory.

1. The civil wrong theory which states that criminal law is originated from torts. According
to this theory, firstly the damaged parties claimed compensation to wrongs done to them
and later some of the wrongs came to be adjudged as being deterrent to society at large.

2. Social wrong theory established that criminal law emerged as a national process of
integrated society. Thus regulations are made by society to prevent the repetition of
wrongs. This theory failed to explain how criminal law developed over the course of time
but this theory holds true for serious offences like murder, dacoity, etc.

3. The moral wrong theory stated that criminal law is the crystallization of morals,
traditions and the like. Customs got an ethical foundation that continued over longs periods
of time and its violation came to receive hostile reaction from the society. Penal laws and
punishments were framed against such acts. However, this theory failed to explain many
economic like tax evasion but successfully explained conventional crimes against persons
and property.

4) The group conflict theory in which the rival groups were in conflict with each other out
of which the criminal law developed. Offences against the state and public at large were not
explained by this theory.

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DEFINITIONS OF CRIME

Though it is different to give a precise definition of crime, many scholars have, from time to
time, while focusing on one or the other dimension of a prohibited act, defined the term
crime. William Blackstone, in his book, Commentaries on the Laws of England, has defined
Crime as, “an act committed or omitted in violation of public law forbidding or commanding
it.” However, the term ‘public law’ has different accepted connotations. Austin perceived it
to be identical with constitutional law, while some other jurists equate it with positive law
or ‘municipal law’. Each of these interpretations has their own merits and demerits.
Perhaps, visualizing these inadequacies, Blackstone gave another definition, “a violation of
the public rights and duties due to the whole community considered as a community.”
Sergeant Stephen, modified this definition to read, “A crime is a violation of a right,
considered in reference to the evil tendency of such violation as regards the community at
large.” Again, this definition is inadequate as the essential characteristic
of a crime is not the violation of a right, but the doing of prohibited acts (e.g. possession of
counterfeit coins).

SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE ELEMENTS OF CRIME

A person cannot usually be held guilty of a criminal offence except two elements are
present: an actus reus, which means a guilty act; and mens rea, which is Latin for guilty
mind. Both of these elements have very specific meaning and they actually refer to more
than just moral guilt which varies according to the crime, but the vital thing to remember is
that to be guilty of an offence, an accused must not only have behaved in a particular way
i.e. actus reus, but must also usually have had a specific mental approach to that behavior
i.e. the mens rea. A small group of offences known as crimes of strict liability is exception to
this rule. The definition of a particular crime, either in statute or under common law, will
contain the required actus reus and mens rea for the offence.
The prosecution has to prove both of these elements so that the magistrates or jury are
satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of their existence, If this is not done, the person will be
acquitted, as in English law all persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

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ACTUS REUS:

OBJECTIVE ELEMENT OF CRIME

Actus Reus comprises of all the elements of crime except the mental element i.e. Mens Rea.
An actus reus can consist of more than just an act which means that it comprises of all the
elements of the offence other than the mens rea of the defendant. It depends on the offence
which may include the circumstances in which it was committed, and/or the consequences
of what was done. For example, the crime of rape requires unlawful sexual intercourse by a
man with a person without their consent. The lack of consent is a surrounding
circumstance which exists independently of the accused’s act. Similarly, the same act may
be part of the actus reus of different crimes, depending on its consequences. Stabbing
someone, for example, may form the actus reus of murder if the victim dies, or of causing
grievous bodily harm (GBH) if the victim survives; the accused’s behaviour is the same in
both cases, but the consequences of it dictate whether the actus reus of murder or GBH has
been committed.

VOLUNTARY CONDUCT
If the accused is to be held liable of a crime, his or her behavior must be voluntary in
committing the actus reus. Where the accused was not in control of his or her own body
(when the defense of insanity or automatism may be available) or where there is extremely
strong pressure from someone else, such as a threat that the accused will be killed if he or
she does not commit a particular offence (when the defense of duress may be available). In
such cases the behavior is said to be involuntary. Some accidents may be viewed by the
court as amounting to involuntary conduct that does not give rise to criminal liability.
However, in R v Brady the Court of Appeal considered the case where a young man had
drunk heavily and taken drugs and then sat on a low railing on a balcony that overlooked a
dance floor. He lost his balance and fell, breaking the neck of a dancer below who was
subsequently wheelchair-bound. While the fall was a tragic accident the Court of Appeal
pointed to his earlier voluntary conduct of becoming heavily intoxicated and sitting
precariously on the railing and considered that this voluntary conduct was sufficient to be
treated as having caused the injuries.

TYPES OF ACTUS REUS ACTION CRIMES

The actus reus in action crimes is simply an act, the consequences of which are immaterial.
For example, perjury is committed whenever someone makes a statement which they do
not believe to be true while on oath. Whether or not that statement makes a difference to
the trial is not important to whether the offence of perjury has been committed.

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RESULT CRIMES
There are many examples of result crimes some of which are Manslaughter, Murder,
wounding etc. In this type of crime many authors argue that it is not based on conduct but
only on result of crime. In short the law features only on the result and not on the conduct
which causes result. Therefore actus reus can be defined as the result of such conduct
which law seeks to prevent. But stabbing a person is the actus reus and not the dead person
with a knife at his back.

CONDUCT CRIMES
The arrangement of offences into ‘conduct crimes’ and ‘result crimes’ may occasionally
seem awkward and futile. Nevertheless, it is always essential to identify the fundamental
elements of an offence, and use of this classification sometimes highlights key changes
between offences. The arrangement of offences into ‘conduct crimes’ and ‘result crimes’ can
be a somewhat crude process, and may not always be particularly helpful. Rape, for
example, does not really lend itself to analysis in such terms. Nevertheless, it is always
necessary to identify the constituent elements of an offence, and the classification can
sometimes highlight essential differences between two alternative charges.

ACTUS REUS INCLUDES CIRCUMSTANCES

The actus reus comprises of conduct and in cases, of its consequences, and also of the
circumstances in which the conduct happens. If circumstances are included in the
definition of the crime then they are relevant like consequences. For example, theft needs
that there should be dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another. If no one
has the ownership of property then it is not theft as it will not constitute actus reus. In this
case an essential element of crime is missing no matter it was dishonestly appropriated. In
child sex offences, the conduct of sexual touching, etc. must be committed in the prescribed
circumstance of the child being under a specified age (13 or 16 depending on the charge).
In burglary, D’s conduct of entering a building must be in prescribed circumstances: as a
trespasser; and so on.

A STATE OF AFFAIRS AS AN ACTUS REUS

A crime may be committed although there is no “act” in the normal sense instead there may
be a specified state of affairs which is deemed sufficient. A "state of affairs" refers to the
circumstances at a particular place and time which are to be distinguished from an act
which is doing something, such as stabbing somebody or taking property and an omission
which is not doing something, such as failing to take care of your child. For example in the
case of R v Larsonneur, In this case, the Defendant was convicted under the Aliens Order

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Act1920 of “being an alien to whom leave to land in the UK has been refused”. The
defendant was found in the UK after she had been brought from Ireland to the UK against
her will in the custody of the police. Note, notwithstanding the fact that the accused was
brought to the UK against her will, she was still convicted of the crime as she was found in
the UK after she was strictly prohibited from being there. The state of affairs in this
instance was constituted when Ms.Larsonneur was “found in the UK”.

DOCTRINE OF CAUSATION
The doctrine of causation is based on the simple premise that ‘a man can only be held liable
for the consequence of his own actions’. The entire doctrine is effectively based on the
interpretation of a single word: ‘consequence’. A liberal definition of the word consequence
extends not to only direct acts of a person but also to the acts done through innocent agents
like cases of duress, or use of infants or insane people to commit crime. This principle of
causation is best illustrated by Illustration (b) under section 299 of the Indian Penal Code,
1860 (“IPC”): “A knows Z to be behind a bush. B does not know it. A, intending to cause or
knowing it to be likely to cause Z’s death, induces B to fire at the bush. B fires and kills Z.
Here B may be guilty of no offence, but A has committed the offence of culpable homicide.”
Due to this broad and liberal nature of the doctrine of causation, it often overlaps with
actus reus and mens rea, and deals with cases of the coincidence of the mens rea and the
actus reus and the doctrine of transferred malice. In other words, as in the aforementioned
illustration, causation is also used to establish the link between the mens rea and the final
actus reus.
The causation must therefore be a sequence of reasonable anticipated or foreseeable
natural consequence from the first link to the consequence in the form of an unbroken
chain. A person can be held responsible for all the consequences of his act that can be
reasonably expected from the same. This test of ‘reasonable expectation’ is an exclusionary
test, that is, each consequence has to be ruled out based on the individual circumstances. In
a complete chain of causation, every link is a direct and reasonably expected consequence
of the previous link. For example, A fires a bullet at a very close range with the intention to
kill B. The initial act of A i.e. pulling the trigger is the first link of the chain of causation. As a
result of pulling the trigger (Link 1), the bullet leaves gun (Link 2) and hits B’s heart (Link
3). The walls of the heart collapse (Link 4) and B’s heart stops pumping blood to the brain
(Link 5) leading to B’s death (Result). The chain of causation here is complete for it was a
natural unbroken sequence. Pulling the trigger by A was therefore the cause of the final
result, actus reus, the death of B.
An Indian case is King Emperor v Sree Narayan & Ors, where the accused after a quarrel
with the victim knocks her unconscious. Believing the victim to be dead, he later burns her
“body”, killing the victim.
In the aforementioned case, the accused is convicted despite the lack of mens rea and the
absenceof a direct act resulting into death. The doctrine of causation thus cannot be

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completely separated from other elements of crime and encroaches upon the domain of
both actus reus and mens rea.

OMISSIONS
As a general rule of law, there is no obligation on the part of any person to act to prevent
the. Citizens are generally not required to be their brother’s keeper. For example: If a
pedestrian consequently dies, and a bystander could have prevented this by reaching out
and pulling the pedestrian from the road but chooses not to, notwithstanding how
inhumane, or morally reprehensible this may be considered, no criminal proceedings can
generally ensue from the bystander’s omission to act. However an omission may give rise
to criminal responsibility in certain circumstances; these circumstances largely being:
(i) Where statute either expressly or impliedly imposes liability for a failure to act and
(ii)where a person is under duty to act arising at common law or under statute by virtue of
the following:
(a) The relationship between persons, certain persons are liable to act;
(b) Contractual relations;
(c) Voluntarily assuming responsibility for another person’s care;
(d) Creating a dangerous situation. These examples are the more common examples and
are not meant to be exhaustive as once it can be proven that a person had a duty to act,
then such person is under a legal obligation to do so.

BY STATUTES
Many statutes also make omissions criminal; failure to providespecimen of breath for a
breath test, failure to report an accident within a prescribed period etc.

BY VIRTUE OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERSONS

As noted in the Text, Criminal Law by Peter Seago (3rd Edition), certain persons are liable
to act because of their status. For example: sea captains are under a duty to take reasonable
steps to protect the lives of their passengers and crew. Parents are under an obligation to
look after the welfare of their children and guardians their wards. For example: The same
principle was followed in R v Gibbins and Proctor.

BY VIRTUE OF CONTRACTUAL RELATIONSHIPS

It is possible to bring oneself under a duty to act by virtue of contractual obligations. For
example: If a person is employed by the National Works Agency to ensure that all roads in
the New Kingston area are in good and proper order and by failing to properly perform his
duties a road caves in and a person driving on that road dies, that person may be liable for
the death of the driver, for even though his contract exists with the National Works Agency,
he is under a duty of care to all users of the road who are not necessarily signatories to the
contract. In R v Pittwood the court held that contractual undertaking was sufficient.

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In that case the accused, who was under a contractual obligation to look after a railway
level crossing, negligently left his post with the gates in such a position as to suggest to
road users that no trains were coming. As a result a man was killed when his cart, which
was crossing the railway lines, was struck by a train.
The accused was charged with causing the death of the deceased bygross negligence. He
argued that he owed no duty of care to the users of the crossing, but rather that his contract
was with the railway company and as such his contractual obligations lay solely with the
railway company. The Court held however that this contractual undertaking was sufficient
to place him under a duty to the road users and as such the prosecution was able to
establish the actus reus.

BY VIRTUE OF VOLUNTARY UNDERTAKINGS

A person may undertake to be his brother’s keeper. Where a person voluntarily assumes
responsibility for another’s care and then simply fails to fulfill that undertaking, he or she
may occasioned. There is no need to prove a legal obligation to undertake the duty or that
is obliged by contract, it is sufficient if the defendant has voluntarily and gratuitously
undertaken the care of another. The same principle was followed in the case of R v Instan.

BY VIRTUE OF CREATING A DANGEROUS SITUATION

Where a person has created a dangerous situation, he is deemed to be under a duty to take
reasonable steps to avert that danger. If for example a person saw two persons trapped in a
burning car, he would be under no duty to try to assist them, if however he was the person
who was smoking next to the car as it was being filled with gasoline and as a result it
exploded into flames, he may be thought to be under a duty to act.

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 MENS REA

Mens rea is the Latin for ‘guilty mind’ and traditionally refers to the state of mind of the
person committing the crime. The required mens rea varies depending on the offence, but
there are two main states of mind which separately or together can constitute the
necessary mens rea of a criminal offence: intention and recklessness. When discussing
mens rea, we often refer to the difference between subjective and objective tests. Put
simply, a subjective test involves looking at what the actual defendant was thinking (or, in
practice, what the judge or jury believe the defendant was thinking), whereas an objective
test considers what a reasonable person would have thought in the defendant’s position.
The courts today are showing a strong preference for subjective tests for mens rea.

INTENTION

Intention is a subjective concept: a court is concerned purely with what the particular
defendant was intending at the time of the offence, and not what a reasonable person
would have intended in the same circumstances. To help comprehension of the legal
meaning of intention, the concept can be divided into two: direct intention and indirect
intention. Where the consequence of an intention is actually desired, it is called direct
intent – where, for example, Ann shoots at Ben because Ann wants to kill Ben.
However, a jury is also entitled to find intention where a defendant did
not desire a result, but it is a virtually certain consequence of the act, and the accused
realizes this and goes ahead anyway. This is called indirect intention (or sometimes oblique
intention). An example might be where Ann throws a rock at Ben through a closed window,
hoping to hit Ben on the head with it. Ann may not actively want the window to smash, but
knows that it will happen. Therefore, when Ann throws the rock Ann intends to break the
window as well as to hit Ben. It should be noted that Lord Steyn suggested obiter, in the
House of Lords judgment of R v Woollin (1998), that ‘intention’ did not necessarily have
precisely the same meaning in every context in the criminal law. He suggested that for
some offences nothing less than purpose (direct intention) would be sufficient. He gave a
possible example as the case of Steane (1947) which concerned the offence of assisting the
enemy with intent to do so. Steane had given a broadcast for the Nazis in order to save his
family from being sent to concentration camps. The accused did not desire to help the Nazis
and was found to be not guilty of the offence.

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RECKLESSNESS

In everyday language, recklessness means taking an unjustified risk. Its legal definition has
radically changed in recent years. It is now clear that it is a subjective form of mens rea, so
the focus is on what the defendant was thinking.
A subjective test:
Following the House of Lords judgment of R v G and another, recklessness will always be
interpreted as requiring a subjective test. In this case, the House favoured the definition of
recklessness provided by the Law Commission’s Draft Criminal Code Bill in 1989 under
which a person acts recklessly with respect to –
(i) a circumstance when he is aware of a risk that it exists or will exist;
(ii) a result when he is aware of a risk that it will occur;
and it is, in the circumstances known to him, unreasonable to take the risk. Defendants
must always be aware of the risk in order to satisfy this test of recklessness. In addition,
their conduct must have been unreasonable. It would appear that any level of awareness of
a risk will be sufficient, provided the court finds the risk taking unreasonable. Until the case
of R v G and another, the leading case on subjective recklessness was R v Cunningham. In
R v Cunningham, the defendant broke a gas meter to steal the money in it, and the gas
seeped out into the house next door. Cunningham’s prospective other-in-law was sleeping
there, and became so ill that her life was endangered. Cunningham was charged under s.23
of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 with ‘maliciously administering a noxious thing
so as to endanger life’.

COINCIDENCE OF ACTUS REUS AND MENS REA

The mens rea of an offence must be present at the time the actus reus is committed. So if,
for example, Ann intends to kill Ben on Friday night, but for some reason fails to do so, then
quite accidentally runs Ben over on Saturday morning, Ann will not be liable for Ben’s
murder. However, there are two ways in which the courts have introduced flexibility into
this area: continuing acts, which are described on p. 16, and the interpretation of a
continuous series of acts as a single transaction. An example of the latter occurred in
Thabo Meli v R (1954). The defendants had attempted to kill their victim by beating him
over the head, then threw what they assumed was a dead body over a cliff. The victim did
die, but from the fall and exposure, and not from the beating.
Thus there was an argument that at the time of the actus reus the
defendants no longer had the mens rea. The Privy Council held that throwing him over the
cliff was part of one series of acts following through a preconceived plan of action, which
therefore could not be seen as separate acts at all, but as a single transaction. The

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defendants had the required mens rea when that transaction began, and therefore mens
rea and actus reus had coincided

MENS REA AND MOTIVE

It is essential to realize that mens rea has nothing to do with motive. To illustrate this, take
the example of a man who suffocates his wife with a pillow, intending to kill her because
she is afflicted with a terminal disease which causes her terrible and constant pain. Many
people would say that this man’s motive is not a bad one – in fact many people would reject
the label ‘murder’ for what he has done. But there is no doubt that he has the necessary
mens rea for murder, because he intends to kill his wife, even if he does not want to do so.
He may not have a guilty mind in the everyday sense, but he does have mens rea. Motive
may be relevant when the decision is made on whether or not to prosecute, or later for
sentencing, but it makes no difference with regard to legal liability.

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CONCLUSION
Thus actus reus and mens rea are the two most important element in crime and any court
could punish a person only if he is found to perform certain act with the guilty mind. If the
act was performed without guilty mind then the person would not be convicted. The
coincidence of actus reus and mens rea is necessary for conviction of an accused.
The law declares tests to be used to determine the substantive nature of crime as if any of
the elements of crime are missing or their presence and working is not proved beyond
reasonable doubt, the whole trial would fall. Similarly the law cannot be made strict as the
freedom of innocent needs to be preserved.
In common law the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable
doubt. For a person to be convicted, both the objective and the subjective test are used by
the Indian courts. Decisions are given both on direct as well as circumstantial evidence.
The elements of crime are the best way to sentence a person as it gives substantive realty
of the situation and the accused and at the same time helps law in not making mistakes or
misjudging a person by pronouncing him guilty only at the stage of preparation or
incarcerating an innocent.

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 Bibliography
 https://www.scribd.com/
 https://www.wikipedia.org/
 Indian Penal Code 1860- Bare Act, 2019 Edition.
 WILLIAMS, “THE DEFINITION OF CRIME” (1955) CURRENT LEGAL PROBLEMS
107. 4, 6.

 Lexis Nexis, Ratanlal and Dheeraj Lal, The Indian Penal code.

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