R v Kennedy

The House of Lords allowed the appeal against a conviction for unlawful act manslaughter where the deceased, a fully informed and responsible adult, freely and voluntarily self-administered a fatal dose of heroin supplied by the appellant. The court held that unlawful act manslaughter must be founded on an unlawful act which is a crime and a significant cause of death; supplying the drug alone could not amount to administering it under section 23 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. The voluntary and informed decision of the deceased to inject himself constituted a novus actus interveniens which broke the chain of causation.

The appellant was convicted at the Central Criminal Court of manslaughter and of supplying heroin contrary to section 4(1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 following the death of the recipient who injected himself with heroin prepared and supplied by the appellant. The appellant appealed against the manslaughter conviction; after an earlier appeal and a Criminal Cases Review Commission referral the Court of Appeal dismissed a subsequent challenge. The present appeal to the House of Lords concerned whether, when a fully informed adult self-injects a supplied class A drug and dies, the supplier can be guilty of unlawful act manslaughter.

The court framed the issues as: (i) what unlawful act (if any) founded the manslaughter charge; (ii) whether conduct short of physically injecting the deceased could amount to "administering" a noxious thing under section 23 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861; and (iii) how causation principles apply where the deceased made a voluntary and informed choice to self-administer the drug.

The court reasoned that section 23 distinguishes between administering, causing to be administered, and causing to be taken, and that where an informed adult voluntarily injects himself that act is not unlawful and breaks the chain of causation. The court rejected attempts to extend causation principles applied in regulatory contexts (Environment Agency v Empress Car) to this criminal context and criticised prior authorities (including R v Rogers and R v Finlay) to the extent they treated facilitation or preparatory acts as amounting to administration. The court concluded that in the case of a fully informed and responsible adult the supplier cannot be convicted of manslaughter on the basis that the supplier "administered" the drug or caused it to be administered; the appeal was allowed and the manslaughter conviction quashed.

Nature of the claim: criminal appeal against conviction for manslaughter and related legal challenge to the application of section 23 OAPA 1861 and causation principles.

Relief sought: quashing of the manslaughter conviction. Issues decided: whether voluntary self-administration by an informed adult can support unlawful act manslaughter founded on section 23; whether the supplier "administered" the noxious thing or caused its administration; and the appropriate application of causation and novus actus interveniens principles. Reasoning: adults are autonomous; a voluntary and informed act ordinarily breaks the causal chain; section 23 requires administration by the defendant or causation of an involuntary taking; facilitating or supplying alone does not meet that threshold.

Appeal allowed. The House held that where a fully informed and responsible adult freely and voluntarily self-administers a drug and dies, the supplier did not 'administer' or cause the administration under section 23 OAPA 1861 and the voluntary act of the deceased breaks the chain of causation; the manslaughter conviction was therefore unsafe and was quashed.

Convicted at the Central Criminal Court on 26 November 1997 (sentenced to five years' imprisonment on the manslaughter count and three years concurrent on the drug supply count). First appeal to the Court of Appeal Criminal Division dismissed on 31 July 1998 ([1999] Crim LR 65). The Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the conviction on 24 February 2004. The Court of Appeal (Lord Woolf CJ, Davis and Field JJ) heard a referred appeal on 31 January and dismissed it on 17 March 2005: [2005] EWCA Crim 685, [2005] 1 WLR 2159. The House of Lords heard argument on 30 July 2007 and delivered judgment allowing the appeal on 17 October 2007: [2007] UKHL 38.