offences against the person

Assault

• AR = any act that causes the victim to fear immediate, unlawful violence
  • words and actions (Logdon)
  • actions without words (Smith v Cheif supt.of working police)
  • silence (ireland)
• MR = intention or recklessness to the AR (as stated in Savage)
• max sentence = 6 months

Battery

• AR = unlawful application of force to another (Collins v Wilcox)
  • this can include touching a persons clothes (thomas)
  • the force can only be applied by force and not an ommission
  • battery can be commited by indirect force (Heystead)
• MR = intention or recklessness to the AR (as stated in Venna)
• max sentence = 6 months

Neither offence requires there to be an injury as such for there to be liability

• triable either way
• max sentence = 5 yrs
• 'actual' means not so trivial as to be wholly insignificant and 'harm' means injury and can include psyciatric harm but not emotions or states of mind (Chan Fook)
• can include hair (Smith 2006)
• MR = intention or recklessness as to assault or battery (Roberts) (defined in the case of Savage)

• AR= to unlawfully or maliciously wound or inflict grievous bodily harm
• wounding must peirce all layers of skin (JCC v Eisenhower) however once a victim has bled it can be considered a wound
• grevious bodily harm is very serious harm and can be a collection of smaller injuries (Brown & Stratton)
• MR=intention or recklessness as to SOME harm (Parmenter)

• AR=maliciously or unlawfully causing grievous bodily harm with intent to do so
• MR=intention has to be malicious (Belfon)
• indictable
• max sentence=Life (25yrs)