Strict Liability Offences

Strict liability crimes are crimes in which the definition includes actus reus, and no mens rea. This means that the act alone, just performing it, is enough to be guilty and no mens rea is needed. There are many different types of strict liability crimes, such as parking on a yellow line, or selling alcohol to underage persons. These are regulatory crimes, and often dismissed by society, claiming they are not 'real crimes.'

Strict Liability offences were originally made in order to help business-related offences to be punished. This may have come from the 19^th century, during the industrial revolution, where factory workers were the subject of abuse, rarely being punished for it, as it was hard to prove mens rea on the factory owner's part, resulting in few successful prosecutions. The fact that many magistrates were also factory owners added to the certainty of proving them non-guilty.

The majority of strict liability crimes are statutory offences. In the famous case of Sweet v Parsley (1970), Miss Sweet was a teacher who let out her cottage to students, and only visited rarely to check if things were in order. However she did not know about the drug taking within the house, and was acquitted as a certain element of mens rea was needed.

Sometimes strict liability offences result in minor penalties. A good example of this is Alphacell v Woodward (1972). The defendants were paper makers, and there was an overflow from some tanks, because pumping equipment had become blocked, which allowed polluted water into a nearby river. The company were only fined £20 as a result.

From many companies point of views, the true cost of a prosecution is things such as lawyers and wasted time, as well as bad publicity after the whole saga. A good example of this is Smedleys v Breed (1974) in which a caterpillar was found in a tin of peas produced in millions. They were convicted under the Food and Drugs act.