Attorney Generals Ref (no.

6 of 1980) CA
Facts: Two youths aged 17 and 18 had an argument in a public street. They decided to settle
their argument with a fight. One removed his watch and the other removed his jacket before
commencing. They both consented to the fight. One sustained bruising to the face and a
bleeding nose.
Issues: can a person consent to being harmed and is it recognized as a valid defence?
Law: As a matter of public policy, generally a person cannot consent to being harmed.
Reason/analysis: As a matter of policy a person cannot consent to fist fights resulting in ABH
or greater harm irrespective of whether they are conducted in public or private. Unless it
comes within any of the established exceptions of: properly conducted games and sports,
lawful chastisement, reasonable surgical interference, dangerous exhibitions, cosmetic
enhancements or horseplay.
Conclusion: Not in the public interest for people to cause or try to cause each other actual
bodily harm.

Central London Property Trust v High Trees House [1947] KB 130 High Court
Facts: High Trees leased a block of flats from CLP at a ground rent of 2,500. It was a new
block of flats at the time the lease was taken out in 1937. The defendant had difficulty in
getting tenants for all the flats and the ground rent left High Trees with no profit. In 1940 many
of the flats were still unoccupied and with the conditions of the war prevailing, it did not look
as if there was to be any change to this situation in the near future. CLP agreed to reduce the
rent to 1,250 during the war years. The agreement was put in writing and High Trees paid the
reduced rent from 1941. When the war was over the flats became fully occupied and the
claimant sought to return to the originally agreed rent.
Issue: Could Central London Property Trust recover the full fees for the war period?
Law: the doctrine of promissory estoppel is granted by the court to prevent a party from
going back on their promise.
Reasons/analysis: The owner was estopped from recovering the lower fees throughout the low
occupation period as the lessee had relied upon the lower fees for his business to stay afloat.
Such reliance had not occurred once occupancy rates had returned to full shortly after the end
of the war.
Conclusion: The rent would be returned to the originally agreed price for the future only. CLP
could not claim back the arrears accrued during the war years. This case is important as
Denning J (as he then was) established the doctrine of promissory estoppel. Promissory
estoppel prevented CLP going back on their promise to accept a lower rent despite the fact
that the promise was unsupported by consideration. Denning J "In my opinion, the time has
now come for the validity of such a promise to be recognised. The logical consequence, no
doubt is that a promise to accept a smaller sum in discharge of a larger sum, if acted upon, is
binding notwithstanding the absence of consideration"

R v Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273

Facts: Three sailors and a cabin boy were shipwrecked and were adrift in an open boat 1600
miles from land. After they had been eight days without food, and six without water, DD
decided that their only chance of survival was to kill the cabin boy and eat him, and this they
did. Four days later they were picked up by a passing ship, and on returning to England were
convicted of murder.
Issue: 1.Is necessity a defence to a charge of murder?
Law: There is no defence of necessity to a charge of murder:
Reasoning/ analysis: Coleridge, writing for the court, found that there was no common law
defence of necessity to a charge of murder, either on the basis of legal precedent or the basis
of ethics and morality: It would be a very easy and cheap display of commonplace learning to
quote from Greek and Latin authors, from Horace, from Juvenal, from Cicero, from Euripides,
passage after passage, in which the duty of dying for others has been laid down in glowing
and emphatic language as resulting from the principles of heathen ethics; it is enough in a
Christian country to remind ourselves of the Great Example [Jesus Christ] whom we profess to
follow. Further, he questioned who was qualified to make the decision of who should live and
who die were the principle to be allowed. Coleridge further observed that such a principle
might be the "legal cloak for unbridled passion and atrocious crime". However, they were
sensible of the men's awful predicament so while they were sentenced to the statutory death
penalty, there was a recommendation for mercy. The sentences was eventually commuted to
six months imprisonment.
Conclusion/ held: The defendants were convicted of murder. The defence of necessity was not
allowed. They were sentenced to death but then granted a pardon by the Crown and served 6
months imprisonment.

Gillick v West Norfolk and Wisbech Area Health Authority [1986] HL

Facts: Mrs Gillick a Roman Catholic mother of five daughters sought a declaration that a doctor
would be acting unlawfully if he gave contraceptive treatment for any of her daughters
without the mother's consent. It was argued on the one hand that teenage pregnancies would
increase if the courts ruled that parental consent was necessary, on the other hand that the
judges would be encouraging under-age sex if they did not.
Issue: whether a doctor may give advice and treatment on contraception to girls under the
age of 16 without parental consent.
Law: the parental right to determine whether or not their minor child below the age of sixteen
will have medical treatment terminates if and when the child achieves sufficient
understanding and intelligence to understand fully what is proposed

Reasoning/analysis: By a majority of three to two. A child under 16 who can fully understand
the implications of the proposed treatment (a "Gillick competent" child) can give her own
consent to medical treatment. (Since Parliament had not legislated, the courts had to make a
decision one way or the other.)
Conclusion/analysis: the declaration was refused. A doctor could prescribe contraceptives to a
girl under 16 to prevent damage to her health, even though he knew it would assist a man to
have unlawful sexual intercourse.

Nettleship v Weston [1971] CA

Facts: The plaintiff gave a friends wife driving lessons. An experienced driver himself, he
checked her insurance first. The learner crashed into a lamp-post, and he was injured. She was
convicted of careless driving, and he sought damages. The judge held that he had voluntarily
assumed the risk. He appealed dismissal of his claim at first instance.
Issue: could the learner driver (pupil) be liable?
Law: learner driver is expected to meet the same standard as a reasonable qualified
competent driver.
Reasoning/analysis: Even learner drivers are to be judged against the standard of the
reasonably competent driver. The fact that a particular driver is inexperienced and
incompetent does not excuse his falling short of this standard. It matters not that a learner
driver is doing her incompetent best.
Conclusion: The appeal succeeded. By being on the road, the learner driver is expected to
behave as a reasonable driver.

Re B (A Minor) (Wardship: Medical Treatment) [1981]

Fact: The child was born with Downs Syndrome and an intestinal blockage. She needed the
obstruction to be relieved if she was to survive. If the operation were performed, the child
might die within a few months but it was probable that her life expectancy would be 20-30
years. Her parents, having decided that it would be kinder to allow her to die rather than live
as a physically and mentally disabled person, refused to consent to the operation. The local
authority made the child a ward of court and, when a surgeon decided that the wishes of the
parents should be respected, they sought an order authorising the operation to be performed
by other named surgeons.
Issue: should the operation be performed irrespective of the patents wishes?
Is the operation in the childs best interest?
Law: "Non-therapeutic" surgeries on disabled patients will be allowed to proceed in cases
where the procedure is in the best interests of the individual concerned.

Reasoning: Best interests of the child that she should have an operation, child could expect
normal span of life of a Mongol.
Held: child allowed to live. The evidence disclosed that if the operation was performed the
child would live the normal span of life of a Mongol.

Re T (Adult) [1992] 4 All ER 649

Facts: T, a 20-year-old pregnant woman, was injured in a car accident and developed
complications that required blood transfusions. She did not indicate on admission that she was
opposed to receiving transfusions but after spending some time with her mother, who was a
practising Jehovah's Witness, she decided to refuse the treatment. Her father wanted
transfusion given forthwith.
Issue: how effective is the patients refusal of blood transfusion? Are the doctors entitled to
treat in accordance with the patients best interests?
Law: A competent pregnant woman can refuse treatment even if that refusal may result in
harm to her or her unborn child, however, A patients consent/ refusal to a particular
treatment may not be valid if it is given under pressure or duress exerted by another person.
Reasoning/ analysis: The Court of Appeal considered that T had been pressurised by her
mother and that her ability to decide about the transfusions was further impaired by the drugs
with which she was being treated. The Court allowed the blood transfusions to proceed.
Conclusion: Blood transfusion lawful.

R v Sheppard [1980] HL
Facts: The appellants were a young couple of low intelligence living in deprived conditions.
Following the death of their 16-month old son from hypothermia and malnutrition, they were
charged under s 1(1)* of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 with wilfully neglecting the
child in a manner likely to cause it unnecessary suffering or injury to its health.
Issue: did the accused willfully neglect the child by genuinely failing to realize that the child
needed medical care? If so, is it an offence of strict liability to be judged by the objective test
of what a reasonable parent would have done?

Law: it an offence for anyone having care of a child to wilfully neglect the child in a manner
likely to cause him unnecessary suffering or injury to health
Reasoning: A genuine lack of appreciation that the child needed medical care or failure
through stupidity, ignorance or personal inadequacy to provide that care were both good
defences because wilfully neglecting a child was not an offence of strict liability. Not to be
judged by the objective test of what a reasonable parent would have done. The civil law
concept of negligence was not to be imported into the offence.
Conclusion/held: the defendants were not guilty.