Assault

?

Force

  • D does not need to apprehend the force
  • the force applied need not be more serious and need be no more than the slightest touch - Savage (1992), Thomas (1985)

Savage (1992)

  • Drenching of beer = battery

Thomas (1985)

  • Caretaker touched hem of girl's skirt
  • Obiter: touching a person's clothes while they are wearing them is equivilent to touching the person
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Indirect Force

Haystead (2000)

  • D punched his girlfriend, who was holding her baby
  • Girlfriend dropped baby. D convicted of battery on the baby from the injuries it suffered from being dropped
  • Conviction upheld, despite there being no direct application of force onto the baby

DPP v K (1990)

  • School pupil stole some acid from chemistry classroom
  • Hid the acid in a toilet hand dryer when he heard someone outside the door, intending to retrieve it later
  • Somebody used the dryer before D could retrieve it. V suffered burns
  • Held: a battery need not be direct or even aimed at any particular victim or indeed, any victim at all.
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Unlawful Force

  • the force must be unlawful - it cannot be from the ordinary jostlings of everyday life, medical situations, lawful arrests, or sporting activities, so long as any touching is within the rules of the sport
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s47 OAPA ABH

  • Assault occassioning actual bodily harm (ABH) = outlined in the Offences Against the Person Act (OAPA) 1861
  • AR: Causing V to apprehend immediate unlwful force, or the actual infliction of unlawful force, occassioning ABH
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Battery MR

Venna (1976)

  • intention / recklessness as to the actual infliction of unlawful force 
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s39 CJA Common Battery AR

  • beyond assault, where D actually applies force to V
  • AR: The actual infliction of unlawful force
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Introduction

  • Types of assault
    • Common Assault / Battery - s39 Criminal Justice Act 1988
    • ABH - s47 Offences Against the Person Act 1861
    • GBH - s20 OAPA 1861
    • GBH - s18 OAPA 1861
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s39 CJA Common Assault AR

  • s39 Criminal Justice Act 1988
  • AR: D causes V to apprehend the infliction of immediate unlawful force

Read and Coker

  • Servants threatened to break V's neck
  • Words alone can amount to an assault

Tuberville v Savage

  • Words can negate assault, if they imply that the force is not immediate, e.g. 'if'

Ireland

  • D made many silent phone calls to numerous women. V suffered serious psychiatric injury
  • Silence can amount to assault

Stevens v Myers

  • Threatening actions can amount to an assault
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Immediate

Ireland

  • V did not know where D was, so had the belief that D could get to V very quickly

Smith v Working PC

  • D = looking through window and so threat could have been imminent
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Common Assault MR

Savage (1991)

  • Intention/recklessness as to causing V to apprehend immediate unlawful force
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Unlawful

lawful if:

  • within the regular rules of a sport
  • in medicine
  • lawful arrest
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What is ABH

  • Considering whether D has gone beyond s39 into ABH requires considering the level of harm V suffered. This is what distinguishes it from s39

Miller (1954)

  • ABH is any hurt or injury calculated to interfere with health or comfort

Chan-Fook (1994)

  • V = locked in room by D
  • V attempted to escape by jumping out of the window but injured self
  • 'Actual' = not so trivial as to be wholly insignificant 
  • Psychological injury does not include mere emotions such as fear, panic, or distress
    • ABH can therefore include stalking/silent phone calls - Ireland

Smith

  • D cut off V's pony tail
  • On appeal, ruled that cutting dead tissue did amount to ABH
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s47 MR

Roberts

  • MR for ABH is the same for common assault and battery
  • There is no additional MR required
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s20 OAPA GBH AR

  • AR has three elements
    • unlawful
    • wound
    • inflict grevious bodily harm
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Unlawful

  • P must prove that there was no consent
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Wound

Eisenhower (1984)

  • a wound is considered to be a break of both layers of skin
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Inflict GBH

DPP v Smith

  • 'Grevious bodily harm' should be given the ordinary meaning of 'really serious injury'
    • Confirmed in Saunders, when CA ruled there was no difference between 'serious' and 'really serious'

Brown and Stratton (1998)

  • Trial judges should not attempt to give a definition to the jury
  • D1 and D2 attacked D2's father for being transgender
  • V suffered broken nose, three broken teeth and a cut over one eye
    • Individually, these injuries would only amount to ABH
  • D's conviction was upheld. CA: jury were entitled to find this harm was 'really serious'

Ireland

  • Really serious psychiatrick injury = GBH
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Inflict GBH cont

Bollom (2003)

  • D convicted of causing GBH with intent to a baby
  • If the injuries inflicted to the baby were inflicted to an adult, it would only be ABH.
    • The V's age and vulnerability can be taken into account

Dica (2004)

  • D knew he had HIV
  • Persuaded two women (on separate occassions) to have unprotected intercourse with him
    • he did not tell them that he was HIV positive
  • Both Vs contracted HIV and D was convicted of causing GBH

Martin (1881)

  • D blocked the doors to a theatre, then shouted that there was a fire. People were trampled
  • Held: 'inflict' = 'cause' and did not require direct force
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Inflict GBH cont

Halliday (1889)

  • D frightened his wife so much that she jumped out of a window to escape and injured herself
  • Conviction upheld - Following the daftnest test, V's action was a foreseeable result of D's unlawful act and he could therefore be regarded as having caused/inflicted her injuries
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s20 MR

Savage

  • D got into argument in pub + threw a pint of beer over V's head
  • Glass slipped from D's hand and caused cuts to V's wrist
  • D charged w/s20 and appealed.
  • First appeal: CA substituted s20 for s47 due to a misdirection on the MR
  • Second appeal: HL upheld s47 conviction, despite not intending, or being reckless as to causing ABH 
  • For s20, D need only intend/be reckless to inflict SOME harm
    • confirmed in Mowatt (1967)

DPP v Parmenter (1992)

  • D handled baby son roughly and caused GBH
  • HL said that establishing an offence under s20 requires P to prove that either D intended or that he actually foresaw that his act would casue some harm 
  • Unecessary to prove that D intended, or foresaw that his act might cause serious physical injury
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18 OAPA GBH

  • s18 GBH with intent is indictable
  • most serious assault

AR (same as s20)

  • Unlawful
  • Wound
  • Caused GBH

MR

  • P must prove intention
  • Intent must be either
    • to cause GBH
      • OR
    • to resist or avoid arrest
  • Intention to merely wound will not suffice - Taylor (2009) 
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