Arulthilakan v The Queen

Criminal law – Murder - Appeals against conviction - Directions to jury concerning statutory murder - Whether trial judge erred in directing jury that presentation of a knife in the course of an armed robbery amounted to an "act of violence" for the purposes of s 12A, Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA) - Whether misdirection gave rise to miscarriage of justice - Causation - Whether reference to "but for" test of causation constituted a misdirection - Whether presentation of a knife in the course of an armed robbery could be regarded as a substantial cause of death of deceased - Application of proviso in circumstances where not possible to tell whether jury's verdict of guilty of murder was based on statutory murder or common law murder.

Criminal law and procedure – Trial for murder - Appeals against conviction - Whether High Court should allow appellants to raise for the first time a new point concerning the adequacy of the trial judge's directions on causation as an ingredient of the offence - Proviso - Whether in circumstances of established misdirection on ingredients of the offence of murder the conviction of the appellants was inevitable - Test for application of the proviso.

Words and phrases – "act of violence".

Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA) – ss 12A, 353(1).