Intention in English Law - Proposals For Reform

Proposals For Reform

In 1978, the Law Commission of England and Wales published a Report on the Mental Element in Crime and proposed a revised definition of intention (to apply to all intention-based offences):

a person should be regarded as intending a particular result of his conduct if, but only if, either he actually intends that result or he has no substantial doubt that the conduct will have that result”.

In 1980 the Criminal Law Revision Committee, in its Report on Offences Against the Person, rejected a test based on knowledge of a high probability that death will result from one's actions. This was felt to be unsatisfactory because a test expressed in terms of probability was so uncertain in result. However, the Committee felt that it would be too narrow to confine intent to cases where the accused desires a certain result, preferring to include cases where the accused knows a particular result will follow. Therefore, according to the Committee a person intends a result when he:

(i)...wants the particular result to follow from his act, or

(ii)...though he may not want the result to follow, knows that in the ordinary course of things it will do so.

In 1985, The Law Commission Report on Codification of the Criminal Law proposed the following definition of murder:

A person who kills another:

(a) intending to kill; or

(b) intending to cause serious injury and being aware that he may kill; [or

(c) intending to cause fear of death or serious injury and being aware that he may kill]

is guilty of murder.

The definition of intention provides that someone “intends” a result when:

...he wants it to exist or occur, is aware that it exists or is almost certain that it exists or will exist or occur.

In 1993, the Law Commission revisited the definition of 'intention' proposing that:

person acts....'intentionally' with respect to a result when:

(i) it is his purpose to cause it; or

(ii) although it is not his purpose to cause that result, he knows that it would occur in the ordinary course of events if he were to succeed in his purpose of causing some other result.

In 2006 the Law Commission’s made its most recent recommendation on the meaning of intention (Murder, Manslaughter and Infanticide (Report No. 304 HC 30) at para 3.27):

“We recommend that the existing law governing the meaning of intention is codified as follows:

(1) A person should be taken to intend a result if he or she acts in order to bring it about.

(2) In cases where the judge believes that justice may not be done unless an expanded

understanding of intention is given, the jury should be directed as follows: an intention to bring about a result may be found if it is shown that the defendant thought that the result was a virtually certain consequence of his or her action”