''R v Miller'' (

case citation Case citation is a system used by legal professionals to identify past court case decisions, either in series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a neutral style that identifies a decision regardless of where it is reported. Case c ...

: 982UKHL 6; 9832 AC 161) is an English criminal law case demonstrating how actus reus can be interpreted to be not only an act, but a failure to act.

Facts

James Miller, a vagrant, was squatting at 9 Grantham Road, Sparkbrook, an inner-city area in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, England, in August 1980 when he accidentally set fire to the mattress on which he was sleeping with a cigarette butt. Rather than taking action to put out the fire, he moved to a different room; the fire went on to cause extensive damage to the cost of £800. He was subsequently convicted of arson, under Sections 1 and 3 of the

Criminal Damage Act 1971 Property damage, Criminal damage is a crime in English law. Originally a common law offence, today it is defined for England and Wales by the Criminal Damage Act 1971, which creates several offences protecting property rights. The act provides ...

. Miller's defence was that there was no

actus reus In criminal law, ''actus reus'' (; : ''actus rei''), Latin for "guilty act", is one of the elements normally required to prove commission of a crime in common law jurisdictions, the other being ("guilty mind"). In the United States, it is some ...

coinciding with

mens rea In criminal law, (; Law Latin for "guilty mind") is the mental state of a defendant who is accused of committing a crime. In common law jurisdictions, most crimes require proof both of ''mens rea'' and '' actus reus'' ("guilty act") before th ...

. Although his reckless inattention to the fire could be said to constitute mens rea, it was not associated with the actus reus of setting the fire. Nevertheless, the defendant was convicted for recklessly causing damage by omission.

Judgment

Upon appeal to the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

Lord Diplock William John Kenneth Diplock, Baron Diplock, (8 December 1907 – 14 October 1985) was a British barrister and judge who served as a lord of appeal in ordinary between 1968 and until his death in 1985. Appointed to the English High Court in ...

stated: The decision in effect established that the actus reus was in fact the set of events, starting with the time the fire was set, and ending with the reckless refusal to extinguish it, establishing the requisite mens rea and actus reus requirements. Therefore, an omission to act may constitute actus reus. Actions can create a duty, and failure to act on such a duty can therefore be branded blameworthy. Secondly, an act and subsequent omission constitute a collective actus reus. This has been described as the principle of 'supervening fault'.

Subsequent developments

The case of '' DPP v Santana-Bermudez'' examined a similar principle, in which the defendant was convicted of

assault occasioning actual bodily harm Assault occasioning actual bodily harm (often abbreviated to Assault OABH, AOABH or simply ABH) is a statutory offence of aggravated assault in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Hong Kong and t ...

under the

Offences against the Person Act 1861 The Offences against the Person Act 1861 ( 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that consolidated provisions related to offences against the person (an expression which, in particular, includes offences of ...

as a result of omitting to inform a police officer when questioned, that he had on his pocket a sharp object (needle).

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite BAILII , litigants = Director of Public Prosecutions v Santa-Bermudez , link = , court = EWHC , division = Admin , year = 2003 , num = 2908 , date = 13 November 2003 , courtname = auto , juris = {{cite BAILII , litigants = R v Miller , court = UKHL , year = 1982 , num = 6 , parallelcite = 9832 AC 161, 9831 All ER 978 , date = 17 March 1982 , courtname = auto Miller House of Lords cases 1982 in United Kingdom case law