Analyse conduct, omissions and causation
Identify the required conduct and result, then explain when failure to act can matter and how causation is proved.
Exam scope and assessment notes
AS and full A Level · section 2.1.1. Original educational scenarios about the law of England and Wales, checked on 14 October 2026. Model answers are formative reasoning, not advice about a real dispute, Cambridge marks or predicted grades. Read the exact statute, case and exam-year source where a rule is disputed or changes. A larger annotated authority bank, full unseen papers and specialist law-teacher review remain outstanding.
Before you begin
- Read a short source carefully and separate its rule from the facts
- Explain which element a fact supports and what is still uncertain
Work on paper. Try each question before revealing help, and explain why your method works.
Quick readiness check
What should a legal problem answer connect?
What you will learn
- Explain actus reus and legally relevant omissions
- Apply factual/legal causation and concurrence of elements
Define the conduct element of this offence
Actus reus can include conduct, circumstances and a result specified by the offence. The prosecution must identify the required element, rather than prove only that something bad happened. A result crime needs a link between the conduct and that result; a conduct offence may not require an actual completed loss.
There is no general criminal duty to rescue every stranger. An omission can matter where a legally recognised duty exists, for example through statute, a relevant relationship, contractual responsibility, an assumed duty or responsibility for a dangerous situation. The precise duty and offence must be established, not inferred from moral disapproval alone.
Trace the causal chain and timing
Factual causation asks whether the relevant result would have occurred but for the conduct. Legal causation examines whether the conduct remains a legally sufficient operative contribution and whether another event breaks the chain. A later contribution does not automatically erase an earlier cause; assess its independence and significance under the relevant rule.
Conduct and the required mental element must coincide in the legally relevant act or transaction. Do not assume that a later guilty thought retrospectively supplies an earlier missing element. Identify the point at which a continuing act, later appropriation or recognised duty may change the analysis.
Sources for this lesson
Pause and explain
Does failure to help a stranger automatically establish a criminal omission?
Worked example
A fictional worker accidentally creates a property hazard, notices it, then ignores an available reasonable protective step. What must a criminal analysis establish?
Show the worked solution
- Identify the relevant offence and required result.
- Examine whether responsibility for the danger creates a recognised duty.
- Apply the required mental element and causation to the later omission.
Answer The analysis needs a recognised duty, the offence's conduct/result requirements, the relevant mental element and causation. Awareness after an accident can change the later omission analysis, but does not itself establish guilt without those elements.
Try a topic test
Choose Easy, Normal or Difficult. Save your answers and open worked review after finishing.
Test this topic →From guided practice to a new situation
Write your answer and reasoning first. Use a hint only if you are stuck. The model solution is for self-checking; your written work is not automatically marked.
Guided: Identify the legal questions missing from ‘the worker did nothing, so is guilty’.
Give me a hint
List requirements rather than a moral verdict.
Compare my reasoning
- Identify a recognised duty and offence.
- Test the mental element.
- Check causal connection to the required result.
The statement omits the legal duty, offence elements, mental state and any required causal connection. An omission can support liability only through the applicable legal framework, not from inactivity alone.
Look for these in your work
- Identifies duty
- Identifies offence/fault
- Identifies causation
Independent: Explain why a later independent cause must be analysed rather than automatically treated as erasing liability.
Give me a hint
More than one event can contribute.
Compare my reasoning
- Identify the original contribution.
- Assess the later event's independence and significance.
- Apply the offence's legal-causation rule.
A later event may contribute without breaking the causal chain. The answer must analyse whether the original conduct remains a legally sufficient cause and whether the later event is a qualifying intervening cause; chronology alone does not settle it.
Look for these in your work
- Distinguishes sequence from causation
- Assesses the later event
- States the legal question
Application: D honestly takes a bag believing it is D's own, later learns it belongs to another and decides to keep it. Explain why timing matters.
Give me a hint
Consider a later assumption of an owner's rights.
Compare my reasoning
- Initial dishonest belief may be absent.
- Later knowledge and keeping can raise a new appropriation issue.
- All theft elements must be checked at the relevant point.
The later decision does not simply make the initial taking dishonest retrospectively. It may instead involve a later appropriation by keeping or dealing with the bag as owner, when knowledge and intention have changed. The full theft elements must be analysed at that later point.
Look for these in your work
- Separates the stages
- Recognises a possible later act
- Preserves all elements
Common mistakes
- Equating moral failure with a criminal duty
- Treating any later event as a break in causation
- Ignoring the timing of the mental element
What can you explain now?
Does failure to help a stranger automatically establish a criminal omission?
Compare with the explanation
No, a relevant legal duty and offence requirements must be established
A legally recognised duty is needed; moral criticism alone does not supply it.
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Make it stick
Does failure to help a stranger automatically establish a criminal omission?
If you needed the solution, close it and solve the problem again from a blank page. A correct answer is stronger when you can explain the reason for each step.