Section 11 - Intent

(1) Where a person does an act for the purpose of causing or contributing to cause an event, that person intends to cause that event, within the meaning of this Act, although in fact, or in the belief of that person or both in fact and also in that belief, the act is unlikely to cause or to contribute to cause the event.

(2) A person who does an act voluntarily, believing that it will probably cause or contribute to cause an event, intends to cause that event, within the meaning of this Act, although that person does not do the act for the purpose of causing or of contributing to cause the event.

(3) A person who does an act of a kind or in a manner that, if reasonable caution and observation had been used, it would appear to that person

(a) that the act would probably cause or contribute to cause an event, or

(b) that there would be great risk of the act causing or contributing to cause an event,

intends, for the purposes of this section, to cause that event until it is shown that that person believed that the act would probably not cause or contribute to cause the event, or that there was not an intention to cause or contribute to it.

(4) A person who, intending to cause an event with respect to one or any of several persons or things, or to an indeterminate person or thing as may happen to be affected by the event, causes the event with respect to that person or thing, and is liable in the same manner as if the intention has been to cause the event with respect to that person or thing.

(5) A person who does an act with intent to assault, harm, kill, or cause any other event to a particular person, which act takes effect, whether completely or incompletely, against a different person, is liable to be tried and punished as if the intent had been directed against that different person.

(6) For the purposes of subsection (5), a ground of defence or extenuation is admissible on behalf of the accused person which would have been admissible if the act had taken effect against the person in respect of whom, or the thing in respect of which, the accused person intended it to take effect.

Illustrations

Subsection (1) A discharges a gun for the purpose of shooting B, and actually hits B. It is immaterial that B. was at a distance, or in a situation where the shot would most probably miss B.

Subsection (2) A, for the purpose of causing the miscarriage of B, administers to B a medicine which A knows to be dangerous to life. It is immaterial that A earnestly desires to avoid causing B’s death, and uses every precaution to avoid causing it.

Subsection (3) A discharges a gun among a crowd of persons, and one of them is shot. A may be presumed to have intended to cause harm, unless A can show that A had ground for believing that harm would not be caused.

Subsection (4) A, in the last illustration, is punishable as if A had purposed to cause the harm to the person to whom it was in fact caused.

Subsection (5) A unlawfully strikes at B, but the blow happens to miss B, and to hit a constable. A is punishable as if A had purposed to hit the constable.