non-fatal offences Flashcards
what section does assault and battery come under?
s.39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988
AR of assault
Causing the victim to apprehend immediate and unlawful force
MR of assault
Intention or recklessness to the assault
R v Constanza
Written letters can amount to an assault
R v Ireland
Written letters can amount to an assault
Tuberville v Savage
Negated threats do not amount to an assault
AR of battery
The application of unlawful force
MR of battery
Intention or recklessness as to the battery
R v Thomas
Touching clothes can amount to battery
What is an omission?
A failure to act
Statuory Duty
s.170 Road Traffic Act 1988-duty to stop and report a road traffic incident
Contractual Duty
R v Pitwood
Duty because of a relationship
R v Gibbins and Proctor
A duty which arises because the defendant set in motion a chain of
events
R v Miller
DPP v Santa-Bermudez
The duty of doctors
Airedale NHS Trust v Bland
Termination of a Duty – the duty to care can be ended.
There can be cases where doctors decide to stop treating a patient. They can terminate
their duty and not be found liable if it is in ‘the best interest of the patient’.
Legal Causation
D can be guilty if they were more than a minimal cause. It does not have to be a substantial cause.
-R v Kimsey
-R v Blaue
Factual Causation
D can only be guilty if the consequence would not have happened ‘but for’ D’s conduct.
-R v Pagett
-R v White
Novus Actus Interveniens
- act of a third party
- victim’s own actions
-act of God
Act of Third Party (poor medical treatment)
Sufficiently independent of D’s conduct and sufficiently serious.
- R v Cheshire
- R v Smith
- R v Jordan
- R v Malcharek
Victim’s own actions
- R v Roberts
- R v Marjoram
- R v Kennedy - drug was injected by V themself not the D
Unreasonable reaction
If V’s reaction is unreasonable, then this can break the chain of causation.
R v Williams and Davies
An intervening event
Where the V is injured, causation will be removed if the
injuries were slight but made worse by some event that could not have been predicted or prevented. Causation will not be removed if the defendant could have prevented the events by taking reasonable steps.
Transferred Malice
This is where D can be guilty if he intended a similar crime, but it was against a different
victim.
Latimer - D aimed a blow with a belt at a man in a pub because that man had attacked him.
The belt bounced off the man and struck a woman in the face.
Held: D was guilty of an assault against the woman, although he
had not meant to hit her.
Coincidence of AR and MR
-Thabo Meli v R
-Church
-Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner
what section does ABH come under?
s.47 OAPA 1861
AR of ABH
Assault or battery occasioning ABH
MR of ABH
Intention or recklessness as to the assault or battery
DPP v Smith
D had an argument with his girlfriend. He then cut off her ponytail and some hair from the top of her head without consent. He was charged with an offence under S.47. The magistrates found there was no
case to answer as they thought that cutting hair could not amount to ABH. P appealed and the Divisional Court held that cutting off a substantial amount of hair could be ABH.
Psychiatric Harm can amount to ABH
R v Chan Fook (1994) - but they did point out that ABH does not include ‘mere emotions’ such as fear, distress or panic nor does it include states of mind that are not themselves, evidence of some identifiable clinical condition is needed’.
Miller’s further definition of ABH
‘any hurt or injury calculated to interfere with the health or comfort of the victim’
AR of s.20 GBH
to inflict wounding or GBH
‘Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously wound or inflict any grievous bodily harm upon
any person, either with or without a weapon or instrument, shall be guilty of an offence and
shall be liable…to imprisonment for not more than five years’
MR of s.20 GBH
The defendant must intend or foresee (Cunningham recklessness) that he or she may cause some kind of harm.
-The section uses the word ‘maliciously’. In Cunningham (1957) it
was held that maliciously did not require any ill will towards the victim it simply meant:
* An intention to do the particular kind of harm that was in fact done or
* Recklessness as to whether such harm should occur or not (i.e., the accused has foreseen
that the particular kind of harm might be done and yet gone on to take the risk of it).
DPP v Smith
further defined as ‘really serious harm’
Wounding
A wound is a cut or a break in the continuity of the whole skin. Therefore, a cut of internal
skin on the cheek is sufficient but internal bleeding where there is no cut of the skin is not
sufficient.
R v Dica
infecting others with HIV is GBH
s.18 GBH
The definition of a section 18 in the act states ‘Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously
by any means whatsoever wound or cause any grievous bodily harm to any person, with
intent to do some grievous bodily harm to any person, or with intent to resist or prevent the
lawful apprehension or detainer of any person shall be guilty of…any offence’.
AR of s.18 GBH
to wound or cause grievous bodily harm.
MR of s.18 GBH
the D must have intended to do some grievous bodily harm or resist or prevent the lawful apprehension or detainer of any person.
Woollin (1998)
intention cannot be found unless the
harm caused was a virtual certainty as a result of the defendant’s actions and the defendant realised that this was a no
