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Problem Question/Scenario Angela is taking her child, Sam, for a walk in the park, and she lets him run around while she sits and reads her novel. Absorbed, she does not notice when Sam begins to play by the boating lake. Brian watches with interest as Sam approaches a slippery area of the bank, and bets with his friend, Chad, that the child will fall in the lake and drown. Sam does slip on the bank and falls in. Not being able to swim, he has some difficulty, and is in clear distress. A large number of people, including Daniel, an experienced lifeguard and paediatrician, watches his struggle. After a few minutes, Daniel attempts to rescue Sam with a totally inadequate piece of string, which breaks. Daniel then decides to sit and watch the action. Discuss the liability of Angela, Brian, and Daniel for Sam‘s death. “So we have the paradox that, to show the community the wickedness of taking human life, the community uses the taking of human life to do that very thing. I believe that, if we are considering the effect on the minds of the community and if we are considering it, not on a short-term basis, but on a long-term basis, the mind of the community, the philosophy of society, will be more affected by the society which says, ‘we abhor the taking of human life so much so that we ourselves renounce our right to do it’, than the society which claims that right as a penalty for the crime of taking human life.” (Samuel Silkin, Speech in the House of Commons, 21 Dec 1964) Should capital punishment for murder be reintroduced in the United Kingdom?