... committing damage to personal property. On appeal, the defendant's conviction was quashed, with Lord Coleridge finding that if the jury had come to a conclusion that the defendant was reckless of the consequences of his actions then they could have found the defendant guilty. As a result the court in Pembliton interpreted maliciously as requiring proof of intention. In the case of R v Cunningham2, the defendant was convicted of unlawfully and maliciously administering a noxious thing so as to endanger life, under s23 Offences against the Person Act [1861]. However, his conviction on appeal was quashed, as the judge had misdirected the jury by telling them that the word malicious simply meant wicked, instead of giving it its legal meaning. It was decided that in any statutory definition of a crime, malice must be taken not in its old sense of wickedness3, but should be that it requires an ...

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