## Facts

- During a barracks fight, Private Thomas Joseph Smith stabbed another soldier with a bayonet, inflicting a serious lung wound and severe hemorrhage.
- While the victim was carried to medical care, he was dropped twice.
- At the medical reception station, the medical officer failed to recognize the seriousness of the injury and administered treatment later described as incorrect and harmful; prompt proper treatment might have prevented death.
- The victim died about two hours after the stabbing.
- Immediately after the incident, the regimental sergeant-major kept the company on parade and indicated they would remain until those involved were identified; Smith confessed.
- The next morning, an investigating sergeant interviewed Smith, administered a formal caution, referred to the earlier admission, and Smith repeated his confession orally and in writing.
- A general court-martial convicted Smith of murder; he appealed on confession admissibility and causation.

## Issues

1. Whether the initial confession was inadmissible because it was obtained by threat or inducement, and whether that taint rendered the later cautioned confession inadmissible.
2. Whether the victim’s being dropped and the subsequent negligent medical treatment broke the chain of causation between the stabbing and the death.

## Decision

- The court dismissed the appeal and upheld the murder conviction.
- The initial confession was treated as involuntary and therefore inadmissible due to inducement arising from the parade circumstances.
- The later cautioned confession was admissible because the earlier inducement had dissipated due to the time lapse, changed setting, and proper cautioning.
- The chain of causation was not broken; the stab wound remained an operating and substantial cause of death despite the dropping incidents and erroneous medical treatment.

## Legal Principles

- A confession obtained by threat or inducement is inadmissible; even slight inducements may taint voluntariness.
- A later confession following an earlier induced statement is admissible only if the original threat or inducement no longer persists; relevant factors include the time interval, changed circumstances, and the administration of a proper caution.
- In homicide, the defendant remains liable if, at the time of death, the original injury is still an operating cause and a substantial cause, even if other causes also contribute.
- Intervening acts (including medical negligence) break causation only where they are so overwhelming that the original injury becomes merely part of the history rather than a continuing cause of death.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed Smith’s murder conviction, holding that a properly cautioned later confession may be admitted once an earlier inducement has dissipated, and that negligent treatment and mishaps in rescue do not sever homicide causation where the original wound remains an operating and substantial cause of death.


Regina v. Smith (Thomas Joseph), [1959] 2 Q.B. 35 (C.M.A.C.)