Daniels, R v

Under section 1(1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, the prosecution must prove both an assault or ill-treatment carried out in a manner objectively likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health, and the required mental element.

Wilfully requires more than a voluntary or deliberate act. The defendant must intend the relevant harm or be reckless as to it. A deficient jury direction will not render a conviction unsafe where an innocent but misguided act was not a realistic possibility on the evidence.

Joanna Daniels and her husband were tried at Derby Crown Court for offences concerning injuries suffered by their adopted child. Joanna Daniels was convicted on count 4 under section 1(1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, alleging that she caused or procured the child to be wilfully assaulted or ill-treated in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health.

Her appeal challenged the adequacy of the trial judge’s directions. The judge had not expressly directed the jury on the objective element concerning the likely consequences of the assault, or on the meaning of wilfully. The central issue was whether those omissions made the conviction unsafe.

1. Appeal dismissed. The trial judge’s directions on count 4 were deficient, but the deficiencies did not render Joanna Daniels’s conviction unsafe.

2. Section 1(1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 required proof that the child was assaulted or ill-treated in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health. That likelihood was an objective element of the actus reus. The judge should have directed the jury that they had to be sure of it. Given the gravity of the injuries, however, a jury sure that Daniels had caused them by assault would inevitably have been sure that the assault was carried out in such a manner.

3. The judge should also have explained that wilfully imposed a mental element. Following R v Sheppard [1981] AC 394, a merely deliberate physical act was insufficient. The word applied consistently to each of the five verbs in section 1(1). It required the relevant intention or recklessness, rather than strict liability.

4. The omission would have made the conviction unsafe if the evidence realistically permitted a finding that Daniels had shaken the child innocently but mistakenly, without intending injury or being reckless as to it. That possibility had no evidential basis. Her case was that the injuries resulted from an accident, and the jury’s verdict rejected that case. The absence of a direction on wilfulness therefore caused no miscarriage of justice.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2008] EWCA Crim 2360, dismissed Joanna Daniels’s appeal against conviction.
• Crown Court at Derby: His Honour Judge Hamilton presided over the trial, at which Joanna Daniels was convicted on count 4 under section 1(1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933.