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Uk Recklessness Essay

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Introduction
The law to recklessness has developed and changed over a very long time and for much of this time the two types of recklessness have been Cunningham Recklessness and Caldwell recklessness , however this has recently changed. In this essay I am going to talk about the history of recklessness, how the case of R v G and another 2003 has affected it and the proposals for reform which were considered as a result of the case.
The History on the Law on Recklessness
The law on recklessness has a long and complicated history. It started in section 51 of the Malicious Damage Act 1861 which stated that 'whoever shall unlawfully and maliciously commit any damage, injury, or spoil being to an amount exceeding five pounds, shall be …show more content…

In this they stated that the Cunningham recklessness was acceptable and the fact that the word 'malicious ' should be replaced with the word 'reckless or wilful '. This was done because 'malicious ' was seen to be out of date and it confused the juries too much. It states that 'what is implicit in 'maliciously ' in the present law will appear explicitly as intention or recklessness in the new code. ' It also gives a definition of recklessness which is 'a person is reckless if '
(a) Knowing that there is a risk that an event may result from his conduct or that a circumstance may exist, he takes that risk, and
(b) It is unreasonable for him to take it having regard to the degree and nature of the risk which he knows to be present. '
However this did not replace the approach of unintentional damage. In R v Briggs 1977 the defendant damaged a car and his appeal was successful as the judge did not explain the term 'reckless ' and the fact that the defendant 's state of mind has to be taken into account. The definition of when a man is reckless was changed in the case of R v Parker 1977 and was changed again in R v Stephenson1979 . The defendant had tried to sleep in a hollow he had made in the side of a haystack and he lit a fire whish set fore to the stack and damaged property worth £3500. However he suffered from a long history of schizophrenia and expert evidence at trial suggested that he may not have had the same ability to foresee or

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