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Words: | Submitted: Thu Oct 09 2003
... or not, i.e. the accused has foreseen that the particular kind of harm might be done and yet has gone on to take the risk of it anyway. This view was followed in R v Stephenson (1979), the defendant went to sleep in a haystack and lit a fire to keep warm. He was convicted of arson. A consultant psychiatrist said the accused was capable of lighting a fire without taking the danger into consideration. His conviction was quashed because his mental condition may have prevented him from appreciating a risk which would have been obvious to any normal person. Objective recklessness, also known as Caldwell recklessness, is where the defendant is judged as a reasonable man. A reasonable man would foresee the defendant's actions would create an obvious risk of injury/danger/harm. In MPC v Caldwell 1982 the defendant was fired from a hotel and when drunk he broke a ...
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