The most serious homicide offence: the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought, and the defences that can defeat or reduce a conviction.
A murder conviction carries a mandatory life sentence, so everything turns on whether each element is made out and whether any defence applies. This chapter begins with the actus reus — unlawful killing, including liability for omissions where a legal duty to act exists — before working through factual and legal causation and the events that can break the chain. It then examines the mens rea of intention to kill or cause grievous bodily harm, covering direct and oblique intention and transferred malice, and moves on to the complete defences, principally self-defence, and the partial defences of loss of control and diminished responsibility, which reduce murder to voluntary manslaughter. It closes with sentencing, from the structure of the mandatory life sentence and the minimum term to whole life orders.
