ABSTRACT
Introduction Most criminal offences occur where the defendant does an act which is prohibited by the criminal law. However, in some situations it may be that the defendant’s failure to act produces liability. In these cases, the defendant may be said to have caused the prohibited result and if criminal law were framed in these terms there would be no ideological problem with finding liability for a failure to act. However, since it is not, the courts have been reluctant to establish liability for omissions except in specific circumstances. One way of avoiding their distaste for liability for omissions would be to construe a failure to act as a continuation of an initial act (a failure to stop doing something) which causes the prohibited result. The courts took this approach in Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner (1969) and in Speck (1977).
