ABSTRACT
A criminal conviction is typically followed by some form of punishment. As every criminal lawyer knows there are thousands of strict liability offences, which do not require proof of any culpability or a limited culpability that encompasses only some of the elements of the offence. For good or ill, Parliament has chosen to make strict liability the standard for firearm offences. Even crimes of the most regulatory/administrative character may carry sentences of imprisonment in addition to fines. Strict liability is a long-standing and wide-ranging presence in English criminal law. Certain states of moral innocence can only be accommodated by way of prosecutorial discretion or at the sentencing stage. When developing and expanding defences care must be taken to work within a conception of law as a rule based method of imposing the strictures of the criminal law. The judicial role is well suited to developing and even on rare occasions creating defences.
