Abstract
The decision of the House of Lords in R v Kennedy (No. 2)1 was welcomed by many academics as a return to the traditional application of causation. The victim in Kennedy was found to have broken the chain of causation between himself and his drug supplier when he self-injected with an already prepared syringe and produced his own death. However, on a careful examination of the law, can the rationale behind Kennedy be supported? This article explores Kennedy’s unconventional relationship with the doctrine of causation and casts a critical eye over the application of the doctrine in ‘fright and flight’ and ‘victim’ cases. There appears to be no correlation between the judgment in Kennedy and the well-established causal principles of foreseeability and novus actus interveniens in the criminal law. Will Kennedy end up being another Environment Agency v Empress Car Co. Ltd?2
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