A Betrayal of Trust? Back to the Drawing Board for Medical Manslaughter

Abstract

In seeking to provide a solution to the issues raised by medical manslaughter, Wheeler and Wheeler have recently proposed reform by way of a reconceptualised offence based on a breach of a fiduciary duty amounting to a betrayal of trust. This article provides an examination of gross negligence manslaughter, before undertaking a review of the proposals advocated by the authors. Applying the proposed offence to more contemporary cases than initially examined by Wheeler and Wheeler, namely, Misra and Srivastava, Kovvali, Rudling, Rose and Sellu, it is argued that despite the initial appeal of a betrayal of trust test, the proposals advocated by the authors do little to remedy the flaws within the current law.