R v Woollin
R v Woollin[1] was a decision of the highest court of law-defining in English criminal law, in which the subject of intention in mens rea, especially for murder was examined and refined.
R v Woollin
The Crown against (or and) (most formally Regina versus) Stephen Leslie Woollin
appeal heard on three days in June; decision pronounced on 22 July 1998
[1999] 1 A.C. 82; [1998] 3 W.L.R. 382; [1998] 4 All E.R. 103; [1999] 1 Cr App R 8
Appeal denied in the Court of Appeal [1997] 1 Cr App R 97, CA
none applicable
Lord Browne-Wilkinson; Lord Nolan; Lord Steyn; Lord Hoffmann; Lord Hope of Craighead
Facts[edit]
Having given various explanations for his three-month-old son's injuries in the ambulance and in the first two police interviews, Woollin eventually admitted that he had 'lost his cool' when his son would not stop crying for hours. He had picked him up, shaken him and thrown him across the room with considerable force towards a pram next to a wall about 5 feet (1.5 m) away.[2] He stated that he had not intended nor thought that he would kill the child and had not wanted the child to die. His actions caused the infant's death as the child hit the floor hard, missing the pram.[3]
Reception[edit]
In R v Matthews and Alleyne,[4] the Court of Appeal concluded that the Woollin test was an evidential rather than substantial rule of law: judges ought to instruct jurors that they may interpret what they would see as certain knowledge on the defendant's part of the virtually certain consequence of death as evidence of intention, but Woollin does not substantively define a secondary type of intention.
The formula is controversial per a large body of academic experts as it gives no illustrations of when knowledge can be rightly and wrongly imputed (ascribed to a person), and gives breadth for possible leniency on grounds unknown.[5][6][7]