UNIVERSITY OF GUYANA LA11B – CRIMINAL LAW 11

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES SEMESTER II 2023-2024

DEPARTMENT OF LAW

STUDYGUIDE 4

OTHER FORMS OF HOMICIDE

Reading:
o Davies, “Child Killing in English Law”, 1 Modern Law Review, 203
o Menon, “The Law on Abortion with Special Reference to the Commonwealth
Caribbean” 5 Anglo-American Law Review 311

1. INFANTICIDE
When a mother kills her child, when the child is under 12 months old, and at the time of the
killing, the balance of the mother’s mind was disturbed as a result of her not having fully
recovered from the effect of giving birth or due to the effect of lactation, then the mother will
be guilty of infanticide rather than murder.
R v Gore
R v. Soanes (1948) 32 CAR 136

2. CHILD DESTRUCTION
It is a criminal offence for a person to intend to destroy the life of an unborn child capable of
being born alive by unlawfully using any means to achieve this result. The offence was
originally created in England to deal with lethal acts intentionally performed during childbirth
where there was doubt about whether the child was born alive.
R v Enoch and Pulley (1833) 5 Carr, 172 ER 1089 (1833)
R v Ann Crutchley (1837) 7 Carr, 173 ER 355
R v Trilloe (1842) Carr and M 650, 174 ER 674

The Meaning of ‘Capable of being born alive’

C v S [1988] 1 QB 135
Rance v. Mid-Downs Health Authority [1991] 1 QB 587

3. CONCEALMENT OF BIRTH
It is an offence to conceal the birth of a child:
"If any woman shall be delivered of a child, every person who shall, by any secret
disposition of the dead body of the said child, whether such child died before, at, or
after its birth, endeavour to conceal the birth thereof, shall be guilty of a
misdemeanor…”

R v. Socket (1908) 1 Crim. Appeal 101

R v. Mills [1963] 1 All ER 202
DPP v. Plant [1973] 3 WLR 1261
DPP v. Newbury [1977] AC 500
Hall v. R 24 WIR 547
Johnson 10 WIR 402
Bartley 14 WIR 407
4. ABORTION
Abortion Act 1967 UK
Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1995, Guyana
Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1983, Barbados

It is illegal to kill a child 'capable of being born live'. Legislation in a number of countries
now provide for the medical termination of pregnancies.

Weatherall 1968 Crim. LR 115

R v. Marlow (1964) 49 C.A.R 49
R v. Spicer [1955] Crim. LR 722
AG’s Reference No. 3 of 1994
R v. Bourne [1939] 1 KB 687
R v. Osborne (1919) 84 JP 63

5. SUICIDE
Suicide is a felony, being regarded as self-murder (“felonia de se”). Attempted suicide is a
misdemeanour. Whoever attempts to commit suicide or any act towards the commission of
such offence can be prosecuted.

A person who was present at the suicide of another and who assisted or encouraged the
suicide was guilty of murder as a principal in the second degree, and this applied equally
where that person was the survivor of a suicide pact:
Rex v Dyson (1823) Russ. & Ry 523
R v Croft [1944] KB 295.
R (Pretty) v. DPP [2002] 1 All ER 1; [2002] 2 FLR 45
B v. An NHS Trust [2002] 2 All ER 449