‘more than merely preparatory’: it is up to the jury to This type of offences is concerned

decide whether an act has been more than merely with the preparation of another
‘commission of the offence’: D criminal offence; enables the police to
preparatory , whilst the judge considers whether there is An act: where an
must be in the process of prevent a crime and still be able to
enough evidence to put this question to the jury; jury omission will not suffice;
committing the actus reus in order prosecute D; for D to be charged with
decides on the following questions: an act must be committed
to complete the offence; D must go such an offence, this must be done in
beyond preparing to do the conjunction with the main offence; D
1) Was D preparing to commit the offence?
offence, and instead be in the can be guilty of inchoate offences
or
commission of the offence even if it was impossible for him to
2) Had D gone beyond preparation and ‘embarked on the
crime proper’? complete the actual offence; ex:
conspiracy, encouraging and assisting
“If, with intent to commit an offence to which this section offences
applies, a person does an act which is more than merely
preparatory to the commission of the offence, he is
guilty of attempting to commit the offence.”

This is an inchoate offence

Definition: where D tries to commit an offence ATTEMPTS

but, for some reason, fails to complete it; set out
in s.1(1) of the Criminal Attempts Act (1981) (Definition) Murder, theft, robbery,
assault and battery can be
charged under attempts

R v White (1910)

 D was V’s son; D wanted inheritance from his

mother (V)
 D put cyanide in V’s tea There is no liability for attempts for summary offences
 V suffered a heart attack before the drank tea (least serious type of offences) unless there is a
and died; death was inevitable parliamentary statute setting out an exception to the rule.
 But for D putting cyanide in V’s tea, she
The Criminal Attempts Act 1981 covers all
would have died anyway => not guilty of indictable offences, and either way
murder because chain of events is broken offences when they are tried on indictment.
 R v Taaffe (1984)

R v Shivpuri (1986)  D was enlisted by a third party in Holland to import cannabis into England

 D was arrested by customs officers and  D had mistakenly believed the substance to be currency, which D had believed was prohibited to import but was
confessed that there was heroin in his luggage in fact not
 After forensic analysis, it transpired that in fact R v Campbell (1991)
the substance was harmless vegetable extract
 D was convicted of attempting to be knowingly  D was not knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of the prohibition on the importation of cannabis when  D had an imitation shotgun,
concerned in dealing with a controlled drug he mistakenly believed that the substance he was importing was currency sunglasses and a threatening note in
 It did not matter that what he was doing was his pocket + was loitering outside a
impossible (because it wasn’t what he thought Post Office on the street
it was) the fact that he believed it to be a  D left and then returned 30 minutes
controlled drug meant that he had the AR and later => the police had been tipped off
MR of the original offence and therefore, could that a robbery was imminent and D
be convicted of attempting to do the was arrested for attempted robbery
impossible!  His conviction for attempted robbery
The only case in which impossibility can now be a
was quashed as he had not actually
defence is where D attempts to commit when they think entered the post office and begun the
is an offence, but which is not actually an offence D hadn’t offence + his actions were merely
preparatory and he had not embarked
‘embarked on the crime proper
on the crime
D must be attempting to do the impossible; proper’
[S1(2) Criminal Attempts Act 1981]; concept R v Geddes (1996)
caused problems for the courts interpreting the ATTEMPTS
parliamentary legislation:  D was found in the boy’s toilet block in a
(AR) D must have ‘embarked school with a kitchen knife, some rope
and masking tape
‘A person may be guilty of attempting to commit upon the crime proper’  He had no right to be in the school and
an offence… even though the fact are such that had not been in contact with any pupils
 Conviction for attempted false
the commission of the offence is impossible.’ imprisonment was quashed => hadn’t
‘embarked on the crime proper’ => all he
had done was prepare to commit the
offence but had not yet been in contact
D need not have performed the with a victim.
 D had not moved from
last act before the crime proper, planning/preparation to execution
Anderton v Ryan (1985) nor need he have reached the  D had not shown that he was actually
‘point of no return’. R v Jones (1990) trying to commit the offence and had
only gone so far as ‘getting ready’ to
 D bought a video recorder very cheaply => she commit the offence
thought it was stolen  D’s partner told him that she wanted their
 Later she admitted this to the police who were relationship to end and that she was seeing
another man – V
R v Gullefer (1987)
investigating a burglary at her home
 D was charged with handing stolen goods  D bought a shotgun and shortened the barrel;
 It was then discovered that the video recorder A-Gs Ref (No1 of 1992) wearing a crash helmet with the visor down,  D had bet on a greyhound in a race =>
was in fact not stolen (1993) he found V and got in his car pointing the gun since the race had started, it was clear the
 HL decided that Mrs Ryan had gone beyond at him dog was going to lose
mere preparation in the commission of the  V managed to grab the gun and throw it out of  D thought that if he ran onto the track, the
offence when she believed she had bought a  D dragged a girl up some steps to a the window race would be declared null and void and he
stolen video recorder; however, it was not shed  D tried to argue that, as the safety catch was could get his money back so he ran onto the
actually stolen => therefore they decided that  D lowered his trousers and still on, he had not done the last act before track
she had not attempted to handle stolen goods interfered with her private parts but the crime proper  Ds conviction was quashed as the offence
because it wasn’t the thing she thought it was was unable to perform => argued he  CA decided that buying the gun, shortening was not running on the track, but trying to
 This decision was criticised for its absurdity; R v could not therefore be convicted of the barrel, loading it and disguising himself get his money back from the betting shop
Shivpuri (1986) overruled this case attempted rape with the visor were all preparatory acts but as => he had not embarked on the crime
 Conviction for attempted rape was soon as D got in Vs car and pointed the gun proper and was merely preparing to get
upheld because by lowering his at him, there was sufficient evidence for
trousers and interfering with the girl, attempted murder
he had ‘embarked on the crime
proper’
 It did not matter that he had not
performed the last act or reached
the point of no return
 R v Easom (1971)

 D picked up handbag in a cinema, rummaged

through the contents and then replaced the
handbag without having taken anything
 Theft conviction of the handbag was quashed
and the contents of the bag were returned
 No evidence that D had intended to
permanently deprive the owner of the bag or
items in it so he could not be guilty of theft

If the prosecution cannot prove Recklessness as to the consequences of the act is

that D had the intention, then D NOT enough for the MR, it must be committed
An intent to commit an offence is not guilty of the attempt intentionally (same applies for the main offence)

MR for Attempted Murder – in attempted

murder, the only intention that is enough is the
intent to kill; intent to cause GBH may be part of ATTEMPTS R v Millard and Vernon (1987)
the MR for murder but it is only the intent to kill
that is sufficient for MR of attempted murder; if the (MR)  Ds repeatedly and recklessly pushed
intent was for GBH, then the attempted offence against a wooden fence on a stand at a
would be GBH football ground
 Prosecution alleged that they intended to
break the fence and they were convicted of
attempted criminal damage
 CA quashed their convictions because they
had not intended to break the fence but had
When the definition of the main offence includes behaved recklessly
R v Whybrow (1951) circumstances, and recklessness in relation to these  Recklessness is not sufficient for the MR of
circumstances, the recklessness for the an attempted offence
 D wired up a soap dish in his wife’s circumstances can be considered in the attempt
bath and attached it to the electricity
supply => she received an electric (even though there still has to be intent for the main
shock when taking a bath offence)
 D was convicted of attempted
murder after the CA decided that he
intended to kill his wife
 However, it must only be intent to kill
A-Gs Reference (No.3 of1992)
(express malice) when determining
the MR for attempted murder
 D cannot be guilty of attempted
murder if he intended GBH (implied  D was a lorry driver, who crashed into some cars parked on the hard shoulder of a
malice) that results in death motorway
 Therefore, some attempted murder  2 people were killed
cases require a higher MR than  D raised the defence of non-insane automatism based on "driving without awareness"
murder cases where D only intended induced by "repetitive visual stimulus experienced on long journeys on straight flat roads"
GBH!  The defence of automatism was left to the jury and the defendant was acquitted
 The A-G referred a point of law to the Court of Appeal as to whether such a condition
could found a defence of automatism
 The defence of automatism should not have been left to the jury and that the state
described as "driving without awareness" was not capable of founding a defence of
automatism