The defendant in R u Merrick (1995) fraudulently obtained the permission of a householder to remove electrical equipment from his house. In doing so he exposed a live cable for six minutes which he then buried under rubble and cemented over. In his appeal to the Court of Appeal against a conviction for criminal damage being reckless as to the endangering of life, he argued that he fell within the lacuna. The Court of Appeal rejected this argument because he had actually thought about the risk, seen the risk and gone ahead and taken that risk. The fact that he thought he would rapidly be able to bring an end to the risk (within six minutes) was not sufficient. The court drew a distinction between steps directed at preventing the risk arising and steps directed at remedying it after at remedying it after it had arisen. Only the former would be sufficient.