Non fatal offences against the person

Question 1

What are the relevant statutes for these offences?

Answer 1

• Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Assault + battery)
• Offences Against the Persons Act 1861 (ABH,GBH, GBH with intent)

Question 2

Assault

Answer 2

• components found in the common law
• AR - D must cause V to apprehend imminent unlawful violence
• MR - intention or recklessness

Question 3

Assault - AR

Answer 3

• Apprehend - No requirement for touch (Ireland).
• Imminent - (Constanza), threats of violence at some point in future doesn’t constitutes.
• Unlawful personal violence - Any non-consensual contact with V (Misalati), Lodgon v DPP - no need to carry it out, threat can be implied/ conditional (R (Krecher) v Leicester Magistates’ Court), violence to 3rd party counts.

Question 4

Assault - MR

Answer 4

• intention or recklessness (Venna)
  -Cunningham recklessness (subjective)
  1 - D foresaw a risk
  2 - It was unreasonable for D to continue to run that risk.
• No need to establish oblique intent – either direct intent or recklessness.

Question 5

Assault - Key cases

Answer 5

• Ireland - silent calls to wm. ->assault didnt require touching.
• Constanza - D harassed for 20 months -> depression. ->D action meant V was caused to apprehend violence ‘at some point not excluding the immediate future’.
• Lodgon v DPP – D convicted of assault after he showed the V a gun and told her he would take her hostage -> unlawful personal violence.
• Krecher - - “ F off if you come around the back I will beat you up’ – considered to be threat.
• Venna - allowing recklessness as sufficient MR for assault occasioning bodily harm.

Question 6

battery

Answer 6

• AR - - Any conduct in which D inflicts unlawful personal violence upon v
• MR - - Intention or recklessness as to infliction of unlawful personal violence on V.

Question 7

Battery - AR

Answer 7

• personal violence - - Faulkner v Talbot ‘any intentional touching of another person without the consent of that person and without lawful excuse’, Pursell v Horn - not limited to bodily contact, Smith = spitting,
• indirect - DPP v K - acid in hand dryer.
• by omission - Santana-Bermudez v DPP - requires breach of duty to act.

Question 8

Battery - MR

Answer 8

• Intention or recklessness as to infliction of unlawful personal violence on V
  -Venna [1976] – Upheld in Spratt [1991]
  -DPP v K [1990] confirmed that battery could be committed recklessly

Question 9

Actual Bodily Harm - S 47

Answer 9

• Offences against person act 1861 - S 47
• AR - Assaut or battery + Occasioning + ABH
• MR - intention or recklessness to cause battery/assualt.

Question 10

ABH - AR

Answer 10

• Occasioning - ‘causing’ - (Roberts), (Savage and Parmenter)
• ABH - Miller - any hurt or injury that is calculated to interfere with the health or comfort’ of V, Chan-Fook - should not be so trivial as to be wholly insignificant’.
• T v DPP - momentary unconsciousness
• DPP v Smith - cutting hair.
• non physical harm - Ireland - psychiatric injury, Miller - includes hysterical and nervous condition.

Question 11

ABH - MR

Answer 11

• Intention or recklessness to cause Battery or assault.
  -Constructive liability offence
  -As assault – foreseeing harm is sufficient – Savage & Parmenter [1992] 1 AC 699
  -Doesn’t need to foresee ABH but needs to foresee assault.
  -Roberts – No additional MR requirement for the result of ABH.

Question 12

ABH - Key Cases

Answer 12

• Ireland and Barstow - both had made silent calls to Vs -> psychiatric harm -> condition upheld as psychiatric injury amounts to ABH.
• Roberts - unwanted sexual advances towards V when driving her in his car. D tried to take off V’s coat (a battery), and this led to V jumping out of the moving car and sustaining grazes and concussion (ABH). -> liability doesn’t require D to foresee the risks his acts will cause.
• Savage and Parmenter - D claimed they didn’t foresee risks , throwing beer and holding baby -> this offence requires no MR as to the causing of ABH.

Question 13

GBH S20

Answer 13

• Offences Against Person Act 1961 S20
• AR - Commits a wounding or inflicts GBH
• MR - Intention or recklessness as to some harm.

Question 14

GBH - AR

Answer 14

Wounding - not defined in statute
- Moriarty v Brooks - breaking of skin, single drop fo blood enough
- Waltham - rupture fo inner skin leading to external bleeding.
- Morris - every layer of skin must be broken.
Inflict GBH - HoL - ‘serious bodily harm’
- Smith - really serious harm.
- Bollom - permanent /life threatening.
- Hicks - brief unconsciousness enough.

Question 15

GBH - MR

Answer 15

• intention or recklessness as to SOME harm – Mowatt [1967] 1 QB 421
  -Recklessness – foresee some risk of harm to the V.
  -D will not commit a section 20 offence if her intention is simply to frighten V, where D does not foresee the possibility of V suffering injury as a result.

Question 16

GBH with intent - S18

Answer 16

• Offences against the person act 1861 S18
• AR - (same as S20)
• MR - direct intention

Question 17

GBH with intent - MR

Answer 17

-Direct intention required.
-Malicious intent - D to intend or foresee the possibility of causing V bodily harm.
-D intends when she either:
(i) acts in order to bring about the result, or
(ii) acts with foresight that the result is a virtually certain consequence of her action, the result is in fact a virtually certain result, and the jury choose to find that she intended it
- Recklessness insufficient - Taylor [2009] EWCA Crim 544

Question 18

GBH - Key cases

Answer 18

• Taylor - D stabbed V in the back during an altercation. There was no evidence that D intended to cause GBH -> S20 conviction, S 18 requires intention to cause GBH (not simply to wound), there was insufficient evidence of such intention.