For a criminal offence to occur there must be two main elements - the prohibited conduct and the mental element of a guilty mind or intention. Unless an offence falls into the unusual category of a strict liability offence, the ...

In order for an individual to be found liable for any offence, three elements must be satisfied. There must be guilty conduct by the defendant (actus reus) The defendant must have a guilty state of mind (mens rea) There must ...

Duress applies as a defence where a person commits a crime as a response to a threat of death or serious injury either to themselves or another. The defence of duress is a general defence but there are certain limitations ...

Where the defendant is charged with a crime there are several ways he can go about attempting to exonerate himself of legal responsibility, reduce his liability or lessen his sentence. This can be done through arguing the facts of a ...

What is consideration? As you will have learnt in chapters one and two, the offer and acceptance are two key components of the contract. However, a valid offer and acceptance only constitutes an agreement. In order for that agreement to ...

An agreement may not qualify as a valid and enforceable contract if it lacks certainty, as upheld in the early decision in Guthing v Lynn, (1831) 2 B7 Ad 232.  For instance, where a son sought to avoid a promissory note ...

The purpose of this chapter is to grasp the concept of acceptance, which is in simple terms the acceptance of the offer.  This is of course a deceptively simplistic overview of acceptance, as there are many different forms of acceptance, ...

The first requirement of a legally binding agreement is that there is an offer. One party is the offeror, who presents the offer, and one party is the offeree, who is the potential acceptor of the offer. The case of Storer v Manchester City ...

The first point to address is in relation to statements made at the pre-contractual stage, which are not in the written contract. The difficulty with these statements is that they are often made orally. Do these statements form part of ...

A contract may be prohibited by a statute either expressly or impliedly. This is an important distinction to make as whether or not a party may enforce the contract is dependent on this. Express Prohibitions If a statutory prohibition expressly ...