The Student Room Group

OCR A2 Criminal Law G153/01 questions

Just completed the Criminal Law exams.and these were the question I did, just wondering if anyone has guideline on the answers to compare it with what I wrote, I did the following questions:

1) Discuss the extent to which the rules of Causation operate fairly

2) Arthur is married to Debbie who is pregnant. Debbie's brother Pete, is staying overnight. He is awoken in the early hours by screaming. He goes to the couples bedroom to find Arthur beating Debbie over the head with a bedside lamp. Debbie and her unborn child both die. Arthur has a history of sleepwalking and when the police interview him he cannot remember anything except a nightmare in which he was hitting an enemy soldier over the head with his rifle.

PC Smith visits the house to speak to Pete. Pete is diabetic and has low blood sugar after failing to eat properly after taking insulin. He gets into an arguement with PC Smith and lashes out uncontrollably, hitting him violently several times. PC smith dies from his injuries.

Advise Arthur and Pete of their potential criminal liability, if any, for murder and any defences defences that may be available to them. Do not discuss voluntary manslaughter.

Scroll to see replies

Did anyone do the strict liability question for section c. I'm not sure if i made the right points.
and did anyone write about robbery and burglary in section b for the theft question.
Reply 2
Original post by Jonokane
Just completed the Criminal Law exams.and these were the question I did, just wondering if anyone has guideline on the answers to compare it with what I wrote, I did the following questions:

1) Discuss the extent to which the rules of Causation operate fairly

2) Arthur is married to Debbie who is pregnant. Debbie's brother Pete, is staying overnight. He is awoken in the early hours by screaming. He goes to the couples bedroom to find Arthur beating Debbie over the head with a bedside lamp. Debbie and her unborn child both die. Arthur has a history of sleepwalking and when the police interview him he cannot remember anything except a nightmare in which he was hitting an enemy soldier over the head with his rifle.

PC Smith visits the house to speak to Pete. Pete is diabetic and has low blood sugar after failing to eat properly after taking insulin. He gets into an arguement with PC Smith and lashes out uncontrollably, hitting him violently several times. PC smith dies from his injuries.

Advise Arthur and Pete of their potential criminal liability, if any, for murder and any defences defences that may be available to them. Do not discuss voluntary manslaughter.


Did you find yourself running out of time? I did the consent essay then that scenario question - the murder bit was fine and actually defining insanity and automatism but i found difficulty to actually apply it - for arthur it was fine about linking that to the case of Burgess etc and how it needs to be sown there is an internal disease but with automatism for Pete it was very hard and i had to actually rush it..
Reply 3
Original post by qwertyujh
Did you find yourself running out of time? I did the consent essay then that scenario question - the murder bit was fine and actually defining insanity and automatism but i found difficulty to actually apply it - for arthur it was fine about linking that to the case of Burgess etc and how it needs to be sown there is an internal disease but with automatism for Pete it was very hard and i had to actually rush it..

I had to rush it as well so I could get into the dialema boards because I only had like 20 minutes left from that one, I found it the same found it difficult to apply it and found myself waffling to just finish the question
Original post by Sharukh Wahab
Did anyone do the strict liability question for section c. I'm not sure if i made the right points.
and did anyone write about robbery and burglary in section b for the theft question.


yeah i did both those question

for section c section i just did it in this format
- SL offences require an AR
-Applied it
- MR is irrelevant in SL offences as they are regulatory
-Applied it
-Stated true or false

that's how my teacher told me to do it since she was an OCR marker... and you don't get marks on A03 so are allowed to bullet point

and yes you're suppose to write about robbery and burglary since it stated any offences under the theft act which includes s.8 robbery and s.9 burglary...

i did both but only used S91A as this section was only relevant and the question said relevant offences so wasn't going to go off on s91B
Reply 5
Original post by Jonokane
I had to rush it as well so I could get into the dialema boards because I only had like 20 minutes left from that one, I found it the same found it difficult to apply it and found myself waffling to just finish the question


applying the murder was fine but yeah did you say they were both guilty and could use the defence?
Reply 6
Hey! I did the attempted murder dilemma board and I didn't mention impossibility for statement D, now I'm really worried 😭 Also completely forgot to define intoxication in question 4, just gave cases. Did anyone else do these questions? Feel like I've got no chance of getting an A* now. Hope it went ok for everyone else!
Reply 7
Original post by qwertyujh
applying the murder was fine but yeah did you say they were both guilty and could use the defence?


Yeah I did, found just about enough time to conclude nicely at the end, guessing you mentioned it too?
Reply 8
Original post by Jonokane
Yeah I did, found just about enough time to conclude nicely at the end, guessing you mentioned it too?


ahhh yeah pal but my application for Pete was vary vague just about how it was caused by an external factor and just to bulk up my paras i tried to apply automastim to arthur and just stated how he couldnt as his was internal but for arthur didnt mention anything about nature and quality :/
Reply 9
Original post by Azahaniel80085
yeah i did both those question

for section c section i just did it in this format
- SL offences require an AR
-Applied it
- MR is irrelevant in SL offences as they are regulatory
-Applied it
-Stated true or false

that's how my teacher told me to do it since she was an OCR marker... and you don't get marks on A03 so are allowed to bullet point

and yes you're suppose to write about robbery and burglary since it stated any offences under the theft act which includes s.8 robbery and s.9 burglary...

i did both but only used S91A as this section was only relevant and the question said relevant offences so wasn't going to go off on s91B


did you find it tight on time?
Reply 10
Original post by jess1999
Hey! I did the attempted murder dilemma board and I didn't mention impossibility for statement D, now I'm really worried 😭 Also completely forgot to define intoxication in question 4, just gave cases. Did anyone else do these questions? Feel like I've got no chance of getting an A* now. Hope it went ok for everyone else!
I forgot to mention impossibility as well 🙄 You'll probably still be fine if you did decent last year, there's leeway to drop a few marks, at least that question was only 5 marks
Reply 11
Original post by qwertyujh
ahhh yeah pal but my application for Pete was vary vague just about how it was caused by an external factor and just to bulk up my paras i tried to apply automastim to arthur and just stated how he couldnt as his was internal but for arthur didnt mention anything about nature and quality :/
Yeah nor did I, found myself writing so much about murder as well ended up wasting quite a bit of time :/ just tried adding every case I possibly could into it
Original post by qwertyujh
did you find it tight on time?


I first chose the questions i was gonna do..consent and the theft question ....then i wrote down all my memorised case names for section A and B on the first page in 5 minutes

then i finished section C first as told to by my teacher...my technique was just bullet pointing the key points and applying like taught in class so it was quick...took me 10 minutes

then section A which took about 55 minutes had about 14 cases
and Section B which took around 48 minutes had 8/9 cases
for section B i went into more detail about theft...then i used the theft to expand on robberies concept of full theft with the use/threat of force before or at the time of theft ...then i also did burglary 91a as this was the only type of burglary that could apply since Daliso had preexisting MR before he stole richards money
I finished comfortably but didn't really read through again as it was pointless
Original post by Azahaniel80085
I first chose the questions i was gonna do..consent and the theft question ....then i wrote down all my memorised case names for section A and B on the first page in 5 minutes

then i finished section C first as told to by my teacher...my technique was just bullet pointing the key points and applying like taught in class so it was quick...took me 10 minutes

then section A which took about 55 minutes had about 14 cases
and Section B which took around 48 minutes had 8/9 cases
for section B i went into more detail about theft...then i used the theft to expand on robberies concept of full theft with the use/threat of force before or at the time of theft ...then i also did burglary 91a as this was the only type of burglary that could apply since Daliso had preexisting MR before he stole richards money
I finished comfortably but didn't really read through again as it was pointless


oh right, and has anyone got any ideas on grade boundaries?
Original post by qwertyujh
oh right, and has anyone got any ideas on grade boundaries?


usually around 90 to get an A ... don't know about the rest..
Original post by Azahaniel80085
I first chose the questions i was gonna do..consent and the theft question ....then i wrote down all my memorised case names for section A and B on the first page in 5 minutes

then i finished section C first as told to by my teacher...my technique was just bullet pointing the key points and applying like taught in class so it was quick...took me 10 minutes

then section A which took about 55 minutes had about 14 cases
and Section B which took around 48 minutes had 8/9 cases
for section B i went into more detail about theft...then i used the theft to expand on robberies concept of full theft with the use/threat of force before or at the time of theft ...then i also did burglary 91a as this was the only type of burglary that could apply since Daliso had preexisting MR before he stole richards money
I finished comfortably but didn't really read through again as it was pointless


Everyone in my school did S9 (1) (B) as well as s9(1)(a) is just entering with intent, S 9(1)(B) is actually stealing or attempting to steal.
Original post by Danimillie
Everyone in my school did S9 (1) (B) as well as s9(1)(a) is just entering with intent, S 9(1)(B) is actually stealing or attempting to steal.


no...

S.9.1A is entering as a tresspasser with intent to steal, commit gbh or do unlawful damage

s.9.1b is having entered as a tresspasser a person steals, attemps to steal, or commit gbh.... s.91b focuses more on conditional intent while trespassing

therefore only s.9.1a applies since the guy in the case study had a pre-existing MR

http://e-lawresources.co.uk/Burglary.php
(edited 6 years ago)
The last statement for attempted murder section C almost confused me but I did conclude the right thing that he was guilty because even though she was already dead you can still be guilty of an attempt like in r v white is this correct?
Didn't mention impossibility like others have said though 😬
Original post by Azahaniel80085
no...

S.9.1A is entering as a tresspasser with intent to steal, commit gbh or do unlawful damage

s.9.1b is having entered as a tresspasser a person steals, attemps to steal, or commit gbh.... s.91b focuses more on conditional intent while trespassing

therefore only s.9.1a applies since the guy in the case study had a pre-existing MR

http://e-lawresources.co.uk/Burglary.php


You do realise that you can have pre-existing MR for S(9)(1)(B) as well dont you?? When he entered and stole, he could have been guilty of 9(1)(A) or 9(1)(B). All similar scenarios on previous mark schemes credit both lollll
Original post by Danimillie
You do realise that you can have pre-existing MR for S(9)(1)(B) as well dont you?? When he entered and stole, he could have been guilty of 9(1)(A) or 9(1)(B). All similar scenarios on previous mark schemes credit both lollll


fair enough i didn't have time, but i'm not too worried since i was only aiming for around 35 marks on question b ... i know i did enough on question a and c

Quick Reply

Latest