Civil Law vs Criminal Law

NEGLIGENT

which is doing something likely to injure your neighbour in circumstances when you would not reasonably be expected to know that the thing you are doing is likely to injure your neighbour, (this is not a criminal offence, one may only be liable for damages in a civil court),

or

RECKLESS

which is doing something you KNOW is likely to injure your neighbour and yet doing it anyway (which IS a criminal offence where one may be arrested, and fined or imprisoned and be liable for damages),

or

INTENTIONAL

which is to INTEND by your act or omission to injure your neighbour (this is the most serious type of criminal offence which is generally punished with the full weight of the criminal law).

Hence; not only does there have to be an unlawful "act" or "omission" for a defendant to be found guilty of a crime; but the MENTAL STATE OF THE ACCUSED PERSON ALSO HAS TO BE OF A CRIMINAL NATURE.

FIRSTLY:

(a). A person is driving a car who has no mechanical knowlege, this person has had the car serviced and maintained by qualified personnel and has the service history in the glove box of the car. The tax, MoT and insurance are all up to date. This person has done all that can be REASONABLY expected to ensure that the car is safe, yet when stopped by the police in a routine road check, it is found that they have defective brakes. This is doing something which is likely to injure their neighbour yet, having taken all REASONABLE steps to insure that what they were doing was NOT LIKELY to cause injury. The person is still responsible in a civil court for the payment of damages should they injure someone as a result, but they have NOT behaved CRIMINALLY.

(b). The same person is driving the same car along the same piece of road at the same speed and is stopped by the same police officer who, this time, forms the REASONABLY HELD BELIEF that the person KNEW that the brakes were defective. This time the person will very likely be tried in a criminal court for doing something which is likely to injure their neighbour KNOWINGLY. If it is found that the person KNEW that the brakes were defective, that would be RECKLESS behaviour which is CRIMINAL.

(c). The same person is driving the same car along the same piece of road at the same speed and is stopped by the same police officer who, this time, forms the REASONABLY HELD BELIEF that the person was AIMING TO HIT someone. This time the person will very likely be tried in a criminal court for doing something which is likely to injure their neighbour INTENTIONALLY. If it is found that the person DID INTEND TO HIT SOMEONE WITH THE CAR then this is obviously a SERIOUSLY CRIMINAL matter.

It may easily be seen from the above, that not only does there have to be an unlawful ACT COMMITTED (ie. driving the car with defective brakes) for a defendant to be found guilty of a crime, but the MENTAL STATE OF THE ACCUSED PERSON ALSO HAS TO BE OF A CRIMINAL NATURE.

SECONDLY:

The other example is rather heavy, but it does prove the point:

Imagine there were two people walking along a street, person "A" who has a gun and a license to use it, and his friend "B" who has no gun, and no license, but who is an expert in "Kung Fu".
Suddenly, on the other side of the street another person "G" takes a gun out and starts shooting people. It would be LAWFUL for person "A" to take his gun out and shoot "G" to prevent him shooting more people.
To take it a stage further, now imagine that person "G" is "A"s twin brother, and no matter how many people "G" shoots, "A" cannot bring himself to shoot his twin brother "G". It would be LAWFUL in this circumstance for "B" to use his Kung Fu skills, and use "REASONABLE FORCE" to take "A"s gun and shoot "G" to prevent him shooting more people.

In ordinary circumstances, a person who stole a gun, and then shot someone with it would be found guilty of assault, battery, theft of a firearm, unlawful possession and use of a firearm, discharging a weapon in a public place, endangering public life, and murder; and they would receive a heavy gaol sentence of around 30 years.

It is therefore apparent that:-

From the first example:

For a defendant to be convicted of crime there has to be both:

(a) an unlawful act or omission, (the ‘actus reus’)

AND

(b) the state of mind (the ‘mens rea’) of the accused has to be of a criminal nature,

From the second example:

REASONABLE, PRUDENT, WELL-INTENTIONED BEHAVIOUR IS NOT CRIMINAL.

Or to put it another way,

If a person can show that they upheld the Duty Of Care In the circumstances they found themselves in, then they are not guilty of a crime.

There have been many cases which are relevant on the eco front, the most dramatic of which was that of the <Ploughshares Women> who broke into British Aerospace and damaged combat aircraft which were to be exported to the Indonesian Government in order to subjugate the native peoples who were (and still are!) trying to resist the encroachment of western hotel complexes (etc etc) into the forests which are their home.

Normally, to break into British Aerospace and damage combat aircraft would be a very serious, (possibly treasonous) criminal offence. However, when it was found that prior to this action the women had taken all REASONABLE steps to make their point known (they wrote petitions and staged peaceful demonstrations etc), and it was realised that the matter was genuinely felt to be of sufficient urgence to justify such an action, the women (after serving several months remanded in custody) were found NOT GUILTY of any crime.

Another case in point is the many thousands of eco-activists who have been arrested under the UK "Criminal Justice" and "Public Order" Acts, eg. for “Criminal Damage” to Genetically Modified crops, yet only a very few have been found guilty of any crime.

This is because it is unarguably the case that in the face of the global threat due to Un-necessary Unreasonable Environmental Damage and Destruction (in this case the threat of GMO’s) being of a similar magnitude to a threat of world-war, it is REASONABLE, PRUDENT AND WELL-INTENTIONED and therefore NOT CRIMINAL to take "Non-Violent-Direct-Action" on environmental issues.