I've just been reading up on the CPS legal guidance on unlawful act manslaughter. [
Homicide: Murder and Manslaughter | The Crown Prosecution Service ]
Relevant parts (IMO):
"The offence is made out if it is proved that the accused intentionally did an
unlawful and dangerous act from which death inadvertently resulted.
An objective test must be applied to the question as to whether an accused's unlawful act, from which death results, was dangerous -
DPP v Newbury (Neil) [1977] Crim. L.R. 359. In judging whether the act was dangerous the test is not did the accused recognise that it was dangerous but would all sober and reasonable people recognise its danger. The jury has to decide whether D's unlawful act exposed V to the risk of "some' harm -
Church [1966] 1 QB 59;
R v JM and SM [2012] EWCA Crim 2293.
Unlawful act manslaughter requires proof that the defendant committed a relevant crime, with the mens rea for that crime. The unlawful act must therefore be criminal in nature and must also be dangerous -
R v Larkin [1943] KB 174.
The prosecution must establish that the unlawful act was a cause of the death without an intervening act to break the chain of causation –
R v Lewis [2010] EWCA Crim 151 "
"Offences which are criminal only because of the
negligent manner of their commission cannot be relied on to prove unlawful act manslaughter -
Andrews v DPP [1937] A.C. 576)."
The unlawful act was rape - I don't see the inherent danger to life. Maybe I'm looking at it too literally. I think that danger would be the act of asphyxiation, the prosecution's case, which would be murder.
MOO
