## Facts

- Four defendants formed a prearranged plan to kill the victim and stage the death as an accident.
- They lured the victim to a hut and struck him on the head, believing they had killed him.
- To disguise the killing, they carried the victim to a cliff and threw or rolled him over, leaving him at the bottom.
- Medical evidence showed the head blow did not cause death; the victim was alive when left below the cliff and later died from exposure (or the effects of being left there).
- The defendants were convicted of murder; they appealed, arguing the intent to kill did not coincide with the act that actually caused death.

## Issues

1. Whether defendants can be convicted of murder when an earlier act done with intent to kill does not cause death, but a later act causing death is done while they mistakenly believe the victim is already dead.
2. Whether a series of acts done pursuant to a single plan may be treated as one continuing transaction to satisfy the requirement that actus reus and mens rea coincide.

## Decision

- The Privy Council dismissed the appeal and affirmed the murder convictions.
- The court treated the beating, removal to the cliff, and abandonment as one continuing transaction carried out to achieve the planned killing and concealment.
- The defendants’ mistaken belief that the victim was already dead did not prevent a finding that the required intent and the conduct causing death sufficiently coincided within the single transaction.

## Legal Principles

- The coincidence requirement for murder is satisfied where the actus reus consists of a continuous series of acts forming one transaction and the requisite mens rea exists during that transaction.
- Courts may reject artificial fragmentation of a planned course of conduct into isolated steps when those steps are directed toward a single criminal outcome.
- A defendant’s misapprehension that the criminal result has already been achieved does not necessarily break liability where subsequent conduct is part of the same prearranged scheme that culminates in death.

## Conclusion

A preplanned killing carried out through multiple connected steps may be treated as a single continuing transaction; intent formed and maintained during that transaction can support a murder conviction even if the fatal mechanism differs from what the defendants initially believed and even if they mistakenly thought the victim was already dead when performing later acts that caused death.


Thabo Meli v. Reginam, [1954] 1 W.L.R. 228 (P.C.)