Odger's English Common Law

116 THE ELEMENTS OF A CRIME.
show that the result which has happened was probable only
when certain circumstances co-existed and that he was not
aware of the existence of such circumstances, then in both
these cases the presumption is rebutted, and he cannot be
held to have intended that result. Again, if he can satisfy
the jury that the possibility of such a result never occurred
to his mind, then—although such heedlessness will probably
render him liable to a charge of criminal negligence 1—he
cannot be held to have intended that result. But if he was
aware that certain consequences might follow the act which
he contemplated doing, and yet deliberately proceeded to do
the act, he must be taken to have intended those conse-
quences to follow, even though he may have hoped that they
would not. 2
Again, the presumption will be rebutted by proof that the
accused at the time he committed the act had not a mind
capable of forming an intention, e.g., that he was mad, or
asleep, or dead drunk, 3 or that he acted under coercion which
he could not resist, or under a bondfide mistake of fact, which
put an entirely different complexion on his act. In all these
"'
cases the mind of the accused does not " go with his act ;
but the burden of proving such facts as somnambulism,
lunacy, duress or mistake lies on the accused. Eor the law
presumes that every one of full age knows what he is doing,
knows right from wrong, and knows (and therefore intends)
the natural consequences of his act.
Thus, where the defendant was indicted for creating a nuisance and it
was contended on his behalf that, to render him liable, the prosecution
must establish one of two things—either that his object was to create a
nuisance, or that the nuisance-was the necessary and inevitable result of his
act—Littledale, J., answered, " If it be the probable consequence of his
act, he is answerable, as if it were his actual object. If the experience
of mankind must lead any one to expect the result, he will be answerable
for it."*
" If a trader make a deed which necessarily has the effect of defeating:
1 See post, p. 119.
2 This is what Bentham called " Indirect intention."
8 Per cur. in S. v. Meade, [1909] 1 K. B. at p. 899.
4 B. v. Moore (1832), 3 B. & Ad. 184, 188 ; cited by Blackburn, J., in Baigh w
Town Council of Sheffield (1874), L. R. 10 Q. B. at p. 107.