OCR Criminal Law Special Study

How are people doing with their revision with this?

If anyone has any useful material or links, please share! There seem's so little to this exam. Have people been learning additional cases for sleepwalking? Like Parks, Lowe, Luedecke etc...

Any advice people?

I'm also struggling a little with the structuring of the questions. It makes it more difficult as there are no past papers. Does anyone have any useful tips or links to any site?

The developing the law question seems okay but do we mention the previous cases such as Sullivan and Henessey, say if it was on Burgess? I'm planning on using Lowe, Thomas and Mason for the recent cases and maybe a little about sexomnia? I would also mention Parks as well (the Canadian case) and throw in a little about precedent and say how it may be persuasive for future cases.

Sleepwalking causes a lot of confusion and uncertainty I think, but I suppose this will be a good evaluation point in the exam.

Also you could talk about precedent when it comes to the M'naghten rules; they have been developed by cases and not statute. Even though M'Naghten rules were not the ratio of the case, they have come to be accepted as the rules. There is a quote in the source about this saying how they have been treated like a statute. You could also briefly mention precedent by saying that Hennessy was distinguished from Quick.

I'm still not sure how to prepare for this exam: I've been basically just making up my own questions and planning them.

Good luck to everyone in this exam!

One final thing; does anyone know what the Law Commissions Scoping paper is basically saying?

What's troubling you about the structure? I gave details above in my last comment so could elaborate if there's something else (E.g how question 1 will be worth 16marks, so spend 16 minutes on the question, which will 100% be based on one of the cases in the pre-release booklet- so I've prepared by knowing case facts on them- Quick, Burgess, Bratty, T, Hennessy, Sullivan, Kemp, M'Naghten). In Q1 you MUST mention at least 1 other linked case- so yes, if it's on Hennessy you can say it's distinguished from Quick)... Is that any help or did you mean something else? I think as long as we churn out case facts and link it to the question it's fine

As far as I've been told, as long as we read the question and are able to link a case to it, then we use it. So if it was Burgess on development of the law, I'd mention how sleepwalking was defined as automatism in Bratty, under 1991 reforms it's now automatism, the unfairness of every sleepwalker being labelled insane, how it's to protect the public from danger of recurrence. (Burgess would only come up directly in Q1 where you need to link 1 case only- so Bratty would be enough. It wouldn't come up in Q2 directly since Q2 is a source quote from the pre-release booklet, so allows more discretion where you could write about Sullivan/Hennessy etc.) Side note: my teacher told us to gather about 30 cases on the side of knowing the book cases, but it looks like you've done that already.

We haven't been told much about sexsomnia. And I haven't heard of a law commission booklet- is that just the pre-release booklet I'm talking about with all the cases/sources in? I hope so

Ps I'm pretty sure nobody will have past questions as they don't exist. But since q1 will definitely be on one of the 8 cases in the book- plan and practise all of those case facts/how you'd link them. That's what I'm doing

Thanks The only thing whats troubling me with the structure is what I need to put in it for the full marks. Also, you said that sleepwalking is automatism under the reform, but in R v Lowe (2005) he was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

The law commission scoping paper 2012 talks about the problems with the M'Naghten rules and suggests reforms.

I just find this exam scary because I need to get an A! And it is a little ambiguous. I've never done an exam before where there are no past papers and I use them a lot!

Oh sorry, that was a typo, I meant to say Lord Denning in Bratty 1963 suggested sleepwalking could be automatism, but in 1991 burgess was found insane, then lowe 2005 was insane too by following the decision in burgess I'd also mention that it's still possible to be external/automatism if sleepwalking is caused by a blow to the head etc. Then, as you said, mention Parks 1992 was treated as an external factor because the canadian courts held that it was the stress at work causing Parks sleepwalking, so there's no danger of recurrence when stress (external) is removed - which is obiter dicta, but english courts say "ordinary stresses and anxieties of life" isn't sufficient as external - so burgess/lowe contrast with parks decision, creating inconsisteny/uncertainty in the law

I also need to get an A! I'm currently on a B and resitting g151 paper from last year in May to get my AS grade up to an A too. Thanks, I'll look up the law commission thing now, hadn't heard of it before

Edit: If it helps, OCR say how many marks are for each AO1/2/3 http://www.ocr.org.uk/images/78356-skills-pointer-guide-units-g154-g156-and-g158-for-2013-series-only.pdf th ... If I recall rightly, (AO1= for writing definitions of insanity/automatism, and writing cases), (AO2= for applying the question, e.g making the right decision in the scenarios of q3), unfortunately it's slipped my mind for what AO3 is (correct me if I'm wrong and anyone realises haha)

Thanks! That top paragraph was really helpful! Yeah, I'm currently on an A, 85% I think. But I need to get AAA for uni and I have three exams in January! Do you need an A for your conditions?

And AO3 is spelling, punctuation, structure of essay etc. (I'm pretty sure if is haha)

Our teacher kept showing us that, it's all he ever does. I don't feel like he's helped us that much with this. He always forgets things and doesn't seem competent! Which makes me more worried!

No problem- keep asking if you're unsure of anything because then it makes me think about what I could write so it helps! I need AAA for my uni offers yeah, I'm on ABB at the minute, but both of my B's are 2ums off A's (1 raw mark I think ) so I'm resitting 2 as exams this year. I also have 3 exams in January haha- luckily I have about 5 days between each one.

I think everybody is having teacher problems with this unit purely because they have no past papers to base things on, and I've never done a paper like this before either. Thanks for reminding me- I think you're right about AO3 Where have you done extra reading that's been helpful? As in, which textbooks/websites if any? I've only been going off my teachers class notes, the Jaqueline Martin A2 book but the section on insanity/automatism is pretty small... and then randomly googling "insanity defence" etc. until a random website comes up to help

Ahh, good luck in your resits! I have 2 exams on the same day! I have never had that before (psychology and politics) Which unis have you applied to and for what subject?

And basically I have also been using that text book and there isn't that much information, but theres an okay amount for problems. I have a few recources as well which our teacher ordered, there is a couple of example questions they could ask and what to put in. Other than that I have just been doing practice essays and navigating myself around the source for relevant references.

I have done that on google as well! They better be nice markers in this exam seeing as it's so difficult to find good information!