## Facts

- After a community-centre dance, two groups of youths argued and fought in the street; bricks and stones were thrown.
- The victim (R.M.) suffered two head injuries: one to the right forehead and one behind the right ear.
- Martin Dyos admitted striking R.M. on the forehead with a brick.
- R.M. collapsed, was hospitalized, and died nine days later from skull fracture and related trauma.
- Medical evidence indicated both head injuries were potentially fatal; either injury alone could have caused death.
- The medical evidence also left a “reasonable and sensible” possibility that R.M. might have recovered from the first injury (whichever it was) if the second injury had not been inflicted.
- There was no evidence identifying how, when, or by whom the second injury (behind the ear) was inflicted, and it could not be determined which injury occurred first.

## Issues

1. Whether there was sufficient evidence of factual causation to leave the murder charge to the jury when an unidentified, independent second injury could have caused death.
2. Whether the prosecution, to meet proof beyond a reasonable doubt on causation, had to exclude a reasonable possibility that death was caused solely by an injury not attributable to the defendant.

## Decision

- The trial judge withdrew the murder count from the jury on a “no case to answer” submission.
- On the prosecution’s challenge, the court affirmed that ruling.
- The court held the evidence did not permit a jury to be sure, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Dyos’s blow caused R.M.’s death.
- The inability to link the second potentially fatal injury to Dyos, or to show it was non-fatal, left a reasonable alternative cause of death unexcluded.

## Legal Principles

- In homicide, the prosecution must prove factual causation beyond a reasonable doubt; the defendant’s act must be shown to have caused the death as a matter of fact.
- Where multiple potentially fatal injuries exist and the evidence leaves a reasonable possibility that death was caused entirely by an independent injury not attributable to the defendant, the murder count should not be left to the jury.
- Speculation cannot fill an evidential gap on an essential element; absent proof connecting the defendant to the fatal mechanism, a jury cannot be invited to infer causation.
- A defendant may be liable for serious non-fatal violence (e.g., grievous bodily harm or public order offenses) even where homicide liability fails for lack of proof on causation.

## Conclusion

Because the victim sustained two potentially fatal head injuries and the prosecution could not exclude a reasonable possibility that the unidentified second injury alone caused death, the court held there was no case to answer on murder and the charge was properly withdrawn from the jury.


Regina v. Dyos, [1979] Crim. L.R. 660 (Cent. Crim. Ct. 1979)