R v. Blaue [1975] 1 WLR 1411

Material Facts:

The defendant stabbed a woman four times after she refused his sexual advances. The victim was rushed to the hospital and was determined to be in need of a blood transfusion. However, she was a Jehovah’s Witness, and her religious beliefs were against blood transfusions. Although she was informed that she would die without the transfusion, she refused to receive it and consequently died. The defendant was charged with manslaughter.

Issue:

Whether or not the victim’s refusal to accept the blood transfusion constituted a novus actus interveniens and broke the chain of causation between her death and the defendant’s act.

Holding:

The victim’s refusal to accept the blood transfusion did not break the chain of causation.

Ratio Decidendi:

At the time of her death, the wound was still the operating cause of death, and her refusal to receive a blood transfusion did not break the chain of causation. According to Lawton LJ,

It has long been the policy of the law that those who use violence on other people must take their victims as they find them. This in our judgment means the whole man, not just the physical man…

…It does not lie in the mouth of an assailant to say that his victim’s religious beliefs which inhibited him from accepting certain kinds of treatment were unreasonable.