Defences to offences of strict liability

Abstract

All the standard texts on the general principles of criminal law E.g. Williams. Chapters 1-7, esp. at 31; Hall, Chapters 1, 3-6, 10; Kenny, Chapter 2; Russell, Chapters 2 and 3; smith and Hogan, Chapters 4, 5, 6 note that criminal liability is incurred for certain of a person's acts or omissions in three different sets of circumstances: 1. where the act or omission is "intentional" or "reckless"; 2. where it is "negligent"; 3. where it is not necessarily "intentional", "reckless" or "negligent", but nevertheless contravenes some statutory provision which is said to be one of "strict" or "absolute" liability. The distinction between "strict" and "absolute" is discussed later in this Chapter, text above n.78.