Mens rea, known as the “mental element” of the crime, has long been considered a crucial factor in criminal law, aimed at ensuring that only those who are guilty are punished for the crimes committed, thus inserting the role of fairness in the criminal law system. HLA Hart agreed with this logic of fairness, arguing that it would be wrong to convict and punish anyone who had not had "a fair opportunity" to exercise the ability to "do what the law requires and refrain from what it forbids." “The general rule is that no crime can be committed without the mens rea.” But this is not respected when strict liability crimes are created. Strict liability crimes require “proof that the defendant engaged in the prohibited conduct, but do not require proof that the defendant was guilty.” There are many interpretations of the term, one of the most accepted formal concepts defines strict liability crimes as those 'which contain at least one material element for which there is no corresponding mens rea requirement'. Strict liability offenses are not usually prosecutable offenses and are generally statutory. For example in Harrow LBC v Shah and Shah. Most driving offenses are contained in the Road Traffic Act 1988. This essay will mainly look at death from driving without a licence, disqualified or uninsured (s3ZB) and death from careless or reckless driving. (s2B) A distinction is often made between constructive and non-constructive strict liability crimes. These crimes are considered strict constructive liability because the prosecution does not need to prove that there was any fault in relation to the cause of death. The case of R v. Hughes will be used in this essay to supplement...half of the document......er itself. If the risk to the public is that great, the punishment should be too, even if the outcome was due to pure luck. However this “inherent risk” theory has some inadequacies specifically in relation to a section 2B offence. The crime of careless driving is judged according to an objective standard, the standard of a reasonable man and his driving ability. This raises a number of questions: first, what is the reasonable standard and when does the defendant fall within that standard. It's human nature to make mistakes from time to time, whether minor or major. Every driver has made some mistake at some point in their driving history. So when the error is a loss of concentration and the driver was just below the standard of a careful driver but an unlikely fatal outcome occurs, it undoubtedly cannot be justified in convicting that person.