R v Pembliton

Ratio Decidendi

Facts

During a fight outside a public house, Pembliton picked up a large stone and threw it at the group of people he had been fighting with. The stone missed the people but struck and broke a large plate-glass window of the public house behind them, causing damage well beyond five pounds. He was convicted of unlawfully and maliciously damaging the window, and the case was reserved on whether his intention to hit the people could support that conviction.

Judgment Summary

The Court for Crown Cases Reserved quashed Pembliton's conviction for malicious damage to property. The jury had specifically found that he threw the stone intending to hit the people, and not intending (or being reckless as) to break the window. The malice required for the offence of malicious damage is an intention to damage property, or recklessness as to such damage; an intention to strike people is a different kind of mens rea and cannot be transferred to a property offence. Transferred malice operates only where the harm intended and the harm caused are of the same kind (person-to-person, or property-to-property); it does not bridge different types of offence. Because Pembliton lacked the specific mens rea for criminal damage, and no finding of recklessness had been made, the conviction could not stand. The case marks the limit of the transferred-malice doctrine and is the standard contrast to R v Latimer.

Key Quotes

Subsequent Treatment