Scenario 1

Alan had a plan to frighten his neighbour, Bel. He bought some firecrackers from Cad’s shop
and told Cad that he wanted to have fun during a long weekend with his neighbour. Cad was
excited about the idea and had given one extra strong ‘dragon firecracker’ to Alan.

One evening, after consuming a few glasses of liquor, Alan lit the ‘dragon firecracker’ and
threw it into Bel’s window near the kitchen which was ajar. He thought Bel was in the house
watching television. In fact, Bel had gone out, but his aged parents Dean and Eli were staying
in his home. The firecracker fell on the curtain and immediately caught fire. A passer-by saw
the incident and quickly called the fire fighter. By the time the fire fighter reached the place,
half of the kitchen area was badly damaged. Dean and Eli were found unconscious due to the
overwhelming fumes and suffocation.

Two ambulances came to take the victim to the hospital. The ambulance which ferried Dean
was driven negligently and involved in an accident. By the time they reached the hospital,
Dean had already died. Meanwhile, the ambulance that ferried Eli was 30 minutes late due to
some mechanical breakdown and needed to be repaired. Eli was admitted into the intensive
care unit. She was informed that a blood transfusion would save her life. However, owing to
her religious beliefs, she refused and died three days later.

During investigation, Alan admitted that he did throw the firecracker to Bel’s home, but
denied that he intended to kill anyone in the house or cause damage to the house.

Based on the above situation, discuss the criminal liability of Alan, Cad and the hospital
authority, and one (1) possible defence/argument for any of the parties.

 
 Scenario 2

Smith worked as personal assistant to a famous actress, Jessica, who was envious of Ariana, a
newcomer and a favourite among the film producers. One day, Jessica asked Smith to buy a
bottle of cyanide poison. Smith became suspicious but followed Jessica’s instruction.

A week later, Jessica invited Ariana and her sister Amylea to join her and Smith on a
vacation at her beach house. On the last night of the vacation, Amylea, who had a history of
sleepwalking, had hit Smith with a baseball stick. Amylea came to her senses when she heard
Smith screaming in pain. Smith managed to disarm Amylea and struck her on her head until
she became unconscious.

Ariana was shocked with the incident and was calmed by Jessica who offered her a drink
which had been mixed with a small amount of the poison. Ariana immediately collapsed and
was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

Jessica was charged for the murder of Ariana. However, the medical evidence showed that
she died due to hypertension. Smith was charged as an accessory to the murder. He claimed
that he knew that Jessica was up to some illegal scheme when she asked him to purchase the
poison but he never thought that it would be a murder.

Meanwhile, in a separate trial, Amylea was charged with the offence of causing bodily injury
to Smith but claimed that she had no recollection of doing the offence and was sleep-walking
when the incident happened. She also contended that it was Smith who had attacked her.

Based on the above situation, discuss the criminal liability of Jessica, Smith and Amylea and
one (1) possible defence/argument for any of the parties.

 
 Scenario 3

William has been charged of raping Tiffany, a 9 years old girl. Despite having previous
criminal records, the court found William not guilty and discharged him. When the verdict
was announced by the judge, William smirked at Angeline, who was Tiffany’s mother.
Angeline was not satisfied with the court’s decision to acquit William for what he had done to
her daughter is inhumane and unacceptable. Upon the death of her daughter, she has been
diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia.

After being acquitted, William continued his life as usual. Unknown to him, Angeline has
been spying on him to find out about his daily activities. She found out that William lived
alone in his house and would spend 3 hours every Saturday at the gymnasium. Angeline had
taken the opportunity to leave a cake outside William’s house during his absence. She had put
poison in the cake with the intention of killing William.

William went home and found a cake outside his house. He brought the cake into the house
and put it in the fridge. That night, William's friends, Aaron and Danny, came to hang out at
his house. William had served the cake to both of them but only Danny ate it. 10 minutes
later, Danny felt unpleasant and then fainted. William and Aaron panicked. They thought
Danny had died. Aaron suggested calling the police but his idea was rejected by William.
This is because William already had past criminal records.

William then took a large bag and stuffed Danny into the bag. He then put the bag into the
back seat of the car. The panicked Aaron started crying and just watched William’s actions.
William ordered Aaron to get into the car. Along the way, Aaron looked at the back seat
several times and found the bag moving. However, he did not dare to do anything. Upon
reaching a bush area, William took out the bag and threw it into the bush. The results of the
post-mortem found that Danny died due to exposure to cold weather when left overnight in
the bush. The doctor had also found that there was poison in Danny's body. William denies
that he poisoned Danny. Police checked the CCTV at William's house and found that
Angeline was the one who delivered the cake. Angeline was later arrested.

During interrogation, Angeline confessed to putting poison with intent to kill William on a
motive to demand justice on behalf of her daughter and prevent William from committing the
same offence on another woman.

Based on the above situation, discuss the criminal liability of Angeline, William and Aaron
and one (1) possible defence/argument for any of the parties.

 
 Scenario 4

Fred adopted Gill, a 9-year-old orphan boy to live with him on their farm. He had no
intention to take care of the poor boy as he was only aiming to get adoption financial support
from the government. Fred has a live-in girlfriend, Sally. She is diagnosed as a slow learner
and was always scared of Fred and would always listen to Fred’s instruction.

Gill was made to do hard work at the farm and was not properly fed by Fred nor Sally. One
night, he complained to Sally of feeling very sick and shortness of breath. Sally told Fred and
wanted to call Dennis, their neighbour who is a male nurse, to come and take a look at Gill.
However, Fred forbade Sally from doing so. At around midnight, Sally found Gill lifeless.
Fred quickly devised a plan to bury Gill behind the horse barn.  Dennis overheard the
commotion between Fred and Sally and was aghast to find that their adopted son, Gill is
dead. Upon realizing that Dennis knew what had happened, Fred decided to take action by
planning an assassination of Dennis.

Fred hired Kem to kill Dennis. Kem took up Fred’s instructions but had no plan of following
up on it. He had instead planned to go to Dennis’s home so that it looked like he had tried
unsuccessfully to kill him in order that Fred would have to pay him the money as promised.
At Dennis’s house, a scuffle ensued between Dennis and Kem. Kem in his desperation to
defend himself, panicked and struck Dennis on head. Dennis passed out. Thinking that he had
killed Dennis, Kem hauled Dennis into the back of his truck, tied and covered him in a thick
blanket. He left him there for the rest of the night. Following a police investigation later,
Dennis’s body was found.

Fred, Sally and Kem were detained by the police pursuant to the investigation of the death of
Gill and Dennis. A post-mortem result showed that Gill suffered severe malnutrition and had
died from starvation. Whilst, post-mortem on Dennis showed that he had died of suffocation
and not due to the blow to his head by Kem.

Based on the above situation, discuss the criminal liability of Fred, Sally and Kem and one
(1) possible defence/argument for any of the parties.

 
 Scenario 5

Helen falls in love with her boss David and becomes obsessed with him. She hired a man
named Edward to kill David’s girlfriend Andrea as she wanted her out of the picture. Edward
had taken Helen’s instruction but never had any intention of following up on it; he had
instead planned to go to Andrea’s house so that it looked like he had tried unsuccessfully to
kill her in order that Suzi would have paid him the money as promised.

When Edward arrived at Andrea's residence, he met Tony who works as a security guard at
Andrea’s residence. It is his job to ensure that only authorized personnel enter the residence.
Tony saw Edward and knew that he was not supposed to be in the residence, but decided that
he would not stop him from entering.

Upon reaching Andrea’'s house, both Edward and Rara were shocked and out of the sudden
Andrea went crazy and started screaming loudly and repeatedly. Tony heard the commotion
but he ignored it and was busy watching Korean drama in his security office. Edward, had in
his words, gone berserk, panicked and stabbed her right on her stomach.

Edward escaped through a window and exited via corridor but was later arrested by the
police. Police called an ambulance and sent Andrea to a nearby hospital for emergency
treatment. Dr. Abdul, a young medical doctor, received and asked to bring her to the
operation theatre for emergency operation and check her medical record finding her record to
have an allergy to prednisolone anti-inflammatory 5 years ago. Looking at her fast recovery
after the operation Dr Abdul decided to give the similar anti-inflammation assuming that was
a long time case and should be clear by now. After a few hours of prescriptions of
prednisolone, Andrea got a seizure attack and minutes later died out of anaphylactic shock.
Edward and Helen were charged with manslaughter against Andrea.

Discuss the extent of criminal liability of the parties and one (1) possible defence/argument
for any of the parties.