Criminal Law: Assault, Sexual Assault, Homicide - Guides
Assault, Sexual Assault, Homicide
5. Murder
Firm / Chambers:
Last updated: 19 Jun 2015
- Murder is a form of criminal homicide. It can occur in a number of ways:
- the intentional killing of another person where one person intends to kill another person and does so;
- killing another person with the intent to cause serious injury or grievous bodily harm. This occurs where a person intends to seriously injure another person and in the course of doing so kills that person. It is murder even if they did not intend death to occur;
- killing another person recklessly. This is also referred to as ‘reckless indifference’. It occurs where a person does an act or fails to do an act and they know at the time of the act or the omission (failure to do an act) that someone’s death may result;
- killing another person while committing another crime of violence. For example this may occur where an offender commits an armed robbery in a bank with a gun and in the course of the robbery a bank teller is shot and dies. The offender may not have walked into the bank with the intention to kill that person. However the death will still constitute murder if it occurred while the offender was committing another crime of violence.
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