Serious Assaults - definitions

Question 1

Intent

Answer 1

There must be an intention:

• to commit the act, and
• to get a specific result

In this context result means “aim, object, or purpose”. Simester and Brookbanks.

Question 2

Maim

Answer 2

To main means “depriving another of the use of such ofhis members as may render him the less able in fighting, either to defend himself or to annoy his adversary”.

In practical terms, it will involve mutilating, crippling, or disabling a part of the body so as to deprive the victim the use of a limb or of one of the senses.

Question 3

Disfigure

Answer 3

To ‘disfigure’ means “to deform or deface; to mar or alter the figure or appearance of a person”.

Question 4

Doctrine of transferred malice

Answer 4

It is not necessary that the person suffering the harm was the intended victim. Where the defendant mistakes the identity of the person injured, or where harm intended for one person is accidentally inflicted on another, he is still criminally responsible, under the Doctrine of Transferred Malice, despite the wrong target being struck.