Читать книгу Criminal Law - Mark Thomas - Страница 82

The second point to note is not to confuse a legal duty to ‘act’ with a duty of ‘care’. The former is the requirement to establish omission liability; the latter is a tort law concept which bears use in terms of gross negligence manslaughter. In order to establish liability for gross negligence manslaughter, it must be proved that the defendant owed a duty of care to the victim. In circumstances where the defendant is charged with gross negligence manslaughter, and he does not perform a positive act (ie his liability is omission-based), the prosecution would not only have to establish a duty of care but would also have to establish a duty to act. We discuss this in more detail in Chapter 7.

The established duties to act are detailed below at 2.6.4 and are generally concerned with duties that exist as a result of a familiar relationship, assumed responsibility or other association.