Picture this. You are forty MCQs into the FLK2 paper, the clock is bleeding away, and a question drops a client into a police station at 2am. The custody officer has authorised detention, the suspect wants a solicitor, and the interview is about to start. The question asks what you advise. Do you reach for the substantive law on the offence, or the procedural rules under PACE? In Criminal Law and Practice, the answer is almost always: both at once.
This subject sits in FLK2 alongside Property, Land, Trusts, Wills and Solicitor Accounts. It is one of the more enjoyable topics to revise because the facts read like real cases. But that readability hides a trap. The examiner blends the criminal offence (the law) with the police station, bail and trial stages (the practice), and a candidate who only revised one half loses easy marks. Let me walk you through what actually gets tested and, more importantly, what to do about it.
Actus reus and mens rea: the SQE1 foundation you cannot skip
Every criminal question rests on two pillars: the guilty act and the guilty mind. You need to identify the actus reus and the mens rea of each offence on the spec, then check whether the facts satisfy both, plus causation where a result is required.
Causation trips people up. Factual causation uses the "but for" test from R v White. Legal causation asks whether the defendant's act was a substantial and operating cause, and whether any intervening act broke the chain. Medical treatment rarely breaks the chain unless it is "palpably wrong" and independent, as in R v Jordan; contrast R v Smith, where the original wound was still operating. The "thin skull" rule means you take your victim as you find them.
On the mental element, learn the difference between direct intent, oblique intent (the R v Woollin virtual certainty test) and recklessness (the subjective R v G standard). Many wrong answers in the question bank are wrong only because the candidate applied an objective test where the law requires a subjective one.
Core offences tested in FLK2 Criminal Law
The SRA specification keeps the offence list focused, so revise it tightly rather than broadly. Expect homicide, non-fatal offences, theft and fraud, and criminal damage.
For homicide, distinguish murder (the unlawful killing of a person with intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm) from the partial defences that reduce it to voluntary manslaughter: loss of control and diminished responsibility under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Then there is involuntary manslaughter, split into unlawful act manslaughter (R v Church, R v Lowe) and gross negligence manslaughter (R v Adomako). A common exam pattern: a death follows a punch, and you must decide between murder, voluntary manslaughter and unlawful act manslaughter based on the stated intent.
Non-fatal offences run up a ladder under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861: assault and battery at common law, then assault occasioning actual bodily harm (s.47), malicious wounding or inflicting grievous bodily harm (s.20), and wounding or causing GBH with intent (s.18). The dividing line between s.20 and s.18 is the mens rea — s.18 needs intent, s.20 needs only recklessness as to some harm.
For property offences, master the Theft Act 1968. Theft (s.1) requires dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with intention to permanently deprive. Dishonesty now follows the Ivey v Genting Casinos test, confirmed for criminal cases in R v Barton and Booth. Robbery, burglary and fraud (under the Fraud Act 2006) build on those concepts, so nail theft first and the rest fall into place. Criminal damage under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 rounds out the list, including the aggravated form where life is endangered.
Quick technique: for every offence, write yourself a two-line "recipe card" — actus reus on one line, mens rea on the other, plus the leading case. Twelve cards cover almost the whole offence syllabus.
Defences that change the answer in SQE1 questions
A question can flip on a defence, so you must spot the cue. The full defences worth knowing well are self-defence and defence of another (now partly codified in s.76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008), intoxication, consent, and the rarer ones such as automatism and insanity.
Self-defence asks two things: was force necessary on the facts the defendant honestly believed, and was the degree of force reasonable in those circumstances? A householder gets slightly more latitude. Intoxication is the classic trap. Voluntary intoxication can negate the mens rea of a specific intent offence (such as murder or s.18) but not a basic intent offence (such as s.20 or assault) — the rule from DPP v Majewski. So a drunken defendant might escape s.18 but still be convicted under s.20. If you see alcohol or drugs in a fact pattern, check the offence type before you answer.
Consent matters mainly for the non-fatal offences. The general rule from R v Brown is that consent is no defence to actual bodily harm or worse, subject to recognised exceptions such as properly conducted sport and reasonable surgery.
The practice half: police station, bail and procedure
This is where Criminal Law and Practice differs from a pure academic module, and where many candidates under-prepare. The "Practice" content is heavily weighted, so treat it as equal to the offences.
Start at the police station. Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and its Codes, know the role of the custody officer, the right to free legal advice, the maximum detention periods (24 hours, extendable to 36 and then, on a magistrates' warrant, up to 96 hours for indictable offences), and the rules on interviews and identification under Code D. Understand the inferences a court may draw from silence under sections 34, 36 and 37 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 — because advising silence is not risk-free, and the SQE loves to test that judgement.
Then move to bail. The Bail Act 1976 gives a general right to bail, subject to exceptions. For an imprisonable offence, the key grounds for refusal are substantial grounds to believe the defendant would fail to surrender, commit further offences, or interfere with witnesses. Learn the factors the court weighs (nature of the offence, the defendant's record, community ties) and the conditions it can impose (residence, sureties, electronic monitoring, surrender of passport). A frequent MCQ asks which ground or condition fits a given set of facts.
On allocation, classify offences correctly. Summary-only offences stay in the magistrates' court; indictable-only offences (murder, robbery, s.18) go to the Crown Court; either-way offences (theft, s.47, s.20, most burglary) follow the plea before venue and allocation procedure under the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980. Know who decides venue and when a defendant can elect Crown Court trial.
If you can answer "what stage are we at, and what is the next procedural step?" for any fact pattern, you have cracked the practice element. Build a one-page timeline: arrest → charge → first hearing → allocation → trial → sentence.
Evidence, sentencing and appeals: the marks people leave behind
The tail end of the syllabus is small but scores well because fewer candidates revise it. For evidence, focus on the admissibility of confessions and the power to exclude unfair evidence under sections 76 and 78 of PACE, the rules on hearsay and bad character under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and visual identification (the Turnbull guidelines). For sentencing, know the purposes of sentencing, the main disposals (custodial, community, fines, discharges), credit for an early guilty plea, and the basics of the Sentencing Council guidelines approach. For appeals, know the routes from the magistrates' court to the Crown Court and to the High Court by way of case stated, and from the Crown Court to the Court of Appeal.
Do not try to memorise every section number. The MCQs reward applied judgement — given these facts, what is the correct step or the most likely outcome — far more than rote recall. Practise by reading the scenario, predicting the issue before you look at the options, then matching.
A focused revision plan for Criminal Law and Practice
Want a simple sequence that works? Spend your first pass building the twelve offence recipe cards and the full-defence list. Second pass, drill the procedural timeline and bail grounds until you can recite them cold. Third pass, do nothing but mixed MCQs under timed conditions, reviewing every wrong answer to find whether you missed the law or the procedure. That diagnosis is gold — it tells you exactly where the next hour should go.
Remember that FLK2 is examined as a single 180-question paper over 5 hours 20 minutes, so this subject competes for your attention with five others. Be efficient. The candidates who pass are not the ones who know the most; they are the ones who can apply a tight, accurate framework at speed.
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