⇒ Intention requires the highest degree of fault of all the levels of mens rea. A person who intends to commit a crime, can generally be said to be more culpable than one who acts recklessly e.g. if you intentionally kill someone, that would be generally worse than killing someone recklessly or negligently.

⇒ The general rule is that intention should be given its ordinary meaning.

⇒ In R v Hales [2005] the Court of Appeal said that only in rare cases will the judge need to give further directions to the jury on intention.

⇒ The ordinary meaning of intention: it is widely accepted that the defendant intends a consequence of his action if he acts with the aim or purpose of producing that consequence.

⇒ The jury must be persuaded beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant intended the result.

⇒ It has been stated by the court that foresight of a consequence is not the same as intention. However, foresight of a consequence may be used as evidence of intention e.g. If you throw a cricket ball over a crowd of people you may foresee it hitting someone, even if that is not your intention. The degree of likelihood is evidence from which a jury may infer that a defendant intended a result.

⇒ Lord Scarman, for instance, said in Hancock and Shankland [1986] that “the greater the probability of a consequence the more likely it is that the consequence was foreseen and... if that consequence was foreseen the greater the probability is that the consequence was also intended”.

⇒ Usually the ordinary meaning of intention is enough for the jury to decide whether the defendant intended his/her actions. Only in rare cases will the jury require further direction to decide whether the defendant intended his/her actions.

⇒ An often quoted example of a borderline case of intention goes as follows: if the defendant plants a bomb on a plane intending to destroy the goods on board, he does not want the pilot to die but that will inevitably happen. In such a case, the judge will have to give further direction to the jury about the meaning of intention.

• R v Woollin is the latest and leading case - in a long line of cases - dealing with the correct direction the judge should provide to the jury in borderline cases of intention → see the case here.