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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 June 2003
Where a victim dies from the injection of a drug, is it possible to convict the person who supplied the drug of a homicide offence? The most obvious offence is constructive manslaughter, for which it is necessary to establish that the defendant committed an unlawful and dangerous act which caused death. This offence may have been committed where the supplier has injected the victim, as was recognised in Cato [1976] 1 W.L.R. 110. The unlawful act was there held to be the administration of a noxious thing, contrary to section 23 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, regardless of the victim’s consent to the administration; and it was this administration which caused the death. But what of the case where the victim injected himself? This was the scenario which was considered by the Court of Appeal in Dias [2001] EWCA Crim 2986, [2002] 2 Cr.App.R. 5.