## Facts

- Kilbride drove and parked his wife’s car on a road in Auckland with a current warrant of fitness attached to the windscreen.
- While Kilbride was away, the warrant became detached and disappeared for an unknown reason.
- A traffic notice was issued alleging breach of a regulation prohibiting a person from permitting a motor vehicle to be on a road, whether or not the operator is present, unless the vehicle carries a current warrant of fitness.
- Kilbride produced evidence that a current warrant had been issued and asserted it was displayed when he left the vehicle.
- He was convicted at first instance on the basis that the warrant was not displayed when the officer observed the vehicle.
- Kilbride appealed, arguing the non-display resulted from an intervening cause beyond his control and without his knowledge.

## Issues

1. Whether a defendant may be convicted of a regulatory “strict liability” traffic offence when the prohibited state of affairs arose only because of an intervening event beyond the defendant’s knowledge and control.
2. Whether the prosecution must prove a voluntary act or omission constituting the actus reus, even where mens rea is not required.

## Decision

- Appeal allowed; conviction quashed.
- The court held the actus reus was not proved because the vehicle’s being on the road without the warrant displayed resulted from an extraneous intervening cause, not from any voluntary act or omission by Kilbride at the relevant time.
- The case was treated as turning on voluntariness in the physical element of the offence, not on mens rea.

## Legal Principles

- A conviction requires proof of a voluntary act or omission constituting the actus reus; this requirement applies even to offences often characterized as strict or absolute liability.
- The physical element must be attributable to the defendant’s conduct in circumstances where some other course was open; where compliance was impossible because the defendant lacked knowledge and control, criminal responsibility does not attach.
- The absence of mens rea may be irrelevant once a prohibited act is proved, but mens rea analysis does not arise unless the prosecution first proves the defendant’s responsibility for the physical ingredient of the offence.
- Where a prohibited event is produced solely by an independent intervention after lawful compliance, the defendant has not voluntarily committed the actus reus.

## Conclusion

The court set aside the conviction because the prosecution failed to establish a voluntary act or omission: the warrant’s disappearance was an intervening event beyond Kilbride’s knowledge and control, so the prohibited state of affairs could not be attributed to him even under a strict regulatory prohibition.


Kilbride v. Lake, [1962] N.Z.L.R. 590 (N.Z. S.C. 1962)