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England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions >> Turbill & Anor, R. v [2013] EWCA Crim 1422 (12 July 2013) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2013/1422.html Cite as: [2013] WLR(D) 279, [2013] EWCA Crim 1422 |
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CRIMINAL DIVISION
Strand London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
MR JUSTICE OPENSHAW
MR JUSTICE JAY
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R E G I N A | ||
v | ||
MAXINE TURBILL | ||
GAIL JULIE BROADWAY |
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Mr H Owen appeared on behalf of the Appellant Broadway
Mr P Grice appeared on behalf of the Crown
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Crown Copyright ©
"I turn now to consider the meaning of the adverb 'wilfully' which governs and qualifies 'neglects' and all the other verbs in s 1(1).This is a word which ordinarily carries a pejorative sense. It is used here to be the mental element, which, in addition to the fact of neglect, must be proved in order to establish an offence under the subsection. The primary meaning of 'wilful' is 'deliberate'. So a parent who knows that his child needs medical care and deliberately, that is by conscious decision, refrains from calling a doctor, is guilty under the subsection. As a matter of general principle recklessness is to be equiparated with deliberation. A parent who fails to provide medical care which his child needs because he does not care whether it is needed or not is reckless of his child's welfare. He too is guilty of an offence. But a parent who has genuinely failed to appreciate that his child needs medical care, through personal inadequacy or stupidity or both, is not guilty."
Lord Diplock explained the mens rea as follows:
" The proper direction to be given to the jury on charge of wilful neglect under section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 by failing to provide adequate medical aid, is that the jury must be satisfied (1) that the child did in did need medical aid at the time the parent is charged with failing to provide it (the actus reus) and (2) either that the parent was aware at the time the child's health might be at risk if it were not provided with medical aid, or that the parent's unawareness of this fact was due to his not caring whether the child's health was at risk or not (the mens rea).
" In our view, neglect is wilful if a nurse or medical practitioner knows that it is necessary to administer a piece of treatment and deliberately decides not to carry out that treatment, which is within their power but which they cannot face performing."
Mr Bermingham and Mr Owen did not appear to dissent from that proposition, but maintained that the judge did not adhere to the formula. Further, prompted by the single judge, they argued the judge failed to give the jury the necessary explicit and clear directions as to the subjective element of the offence. The result is that the jury may have been left with the impression that negligence equates to wilfulness.
They took us to a number of passages of the summing up highlighted by the single judge where it is said that the judge directed the jury in a confused or in an inadequate fashion. Before embarking upon a consideration of those passages, it is important to note, as Mr Grice invited us to do, that at the very beginning of the summing-up the judge directed the jury that "at the heart of this case lies the word wilful". However, he did not purport to define "wilful" or provide any assistance upon its meaning at that stage.
Thereafter, at page 3B he said:
"What they [the prosecution] have to prove in respect of any or all of these defendants is that the neglect was wilful neglect; that is to say, either that it was deliberate, that they or any of them left him there deliberately and didn't visit him when they knew they had a duty to do so, or - and you may think this is really the case, because it's not been suggested by the prosecution they deliberately left in him in his room, as might have been the case for instance if there had been some evidence that someone got angry with him and put him in his room to get him out of the way and just left him there. That isn't that case, is it? That's not what we're talking about, you may think here, here. The suggestion is that he was put in his room and then he was completely forgotten about, because no- one cared enough to see how he was. So you may think the prosecution's real case is not deliberate neglect of him, but that they failed to visit him, he was failed to be visited, out of a grossly careless lack of concern for such duty as any of them had, reflecting what the prosecution have called a couldn't care less attitude."
"So you've got to look at the case of each defendant separately and decide, 'What was the state of mind and has the prosecution proved so that we're sure that it amounted to wilful neglect in the sense that that particular defendant was reckless of the welfare of Thomas Milroy that night?'
What you've got to be quite careful - I should say rather than 'quite careful' particularly careful - not to do is to come to the conclusion in this case, 'Plainly there was neglect of Thomas Milroy, plainly he should never have been left in his condition in the circumstances overnight; the institution itself ... therefore as a body, as an institution, neglected him; therefore, we find one of these defendants neglected him grossly that night.' That is not the way you should look at it. You've got to approach each defendant separately and ask yourselves, 'Are we sure in respect of the particular defendant that we're considering that he or she wilfully neglected Tom Milroy in the sense that he or she acted recklessly in their approach to the duty they had to care for him?' That, I would suggest, is really what is at the heart of this case, but we'll come back to that."
At page 13B he posed the following question:
"Has the prosecution proved, you will ask yourselves, the particular defendant either deliberately or recklessly neglected Thomas Milroy? Let us emphasise that which has been said already. It is not enough for the prosecution against a particular defendant merely to prove forgetfulness."
Then at page 14A:
"...in respect of that particular defendant does it reflect a reckless, a grossly careless, disregard of his being there and his need to be looked after? Or was it merely the inadvertence of people who had a great deal to do and who made mistakes in the circumstances?"
In dealing with the case against Walsh and each of the appellants, the judge repeatedly used the expression "reckless disregard" to describe what the prosecution had to prove.
At page 46E he said:
"Wilful neglect means either deliberate neglect - that has not been at the centre of the prosecution's case. Their case is that the neglect in this case was reckless neglect; that is to say, that the person in question knew he or she had a duty to Thomas Milroy and, for lack of concern, because he or she didn't really care sufficiently, failed to carry out that duty. That's what the case is all about."