- NON-FATAL AND NON-SEXUAL OFFENCES AGAINST THE
PERSON -
- Non-fatal Offences -
- Result crimes
- Differentiated by the degree of harm
- An ‘imperfect’ ladder?
- Wounding with intention to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH), or causing GBH
with intent (s.18)
- Maliciously wounding or inflicting GBH (s.20)
- Assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH) (s.47)
- Assault and battery
- Assault and Battery -
- Distinct offences at common law
- Collins v Wilcock [1984] 3 AII ER 374 - Between a police officer and a woman
engaged in prostitution. There was activity between them, touching. Was this a battery?
Key distinction was between apprehending force and the actual infliction of force.
- An assault is an act which causes another person to apprehend the infliction of
immediate, unlawful, force on his person;
- A battery is the actual infliction of unlawful force on another person.
- Confirmed by s.39 Criminal Justice Act 1988:
- Common assault and battery shall be summary offences and a person guilty of either of
them shall be liable to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, to
imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or to both.
- Nelson [2013] EWCA Crim 30 - An assault against a prison officer. Court upheld that
assault and battery were two seperate things. The offence of common assault could not
be left to the jury as an alternative to an offence of assault by beating without it having
been included in the indictment.
- Civil and criminal wrongs. Tort as well as crimes.
- Sometimes in cases/statutes, the term ‘assault’ will be used in reference to ‘assault and
battery’.
- Assault -
- “An assault is any conduct by which D, intentionally or recklessly, causes V to
apprehend immediate and unlawful personal violence.”
- Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner [1969] 1 QB 439 -
- Savage and Parmenter [1992] 1 AC 699 -
- What do we mean by violence/force?
- One only needs to apprehend unwanted touching/contact
- Ireland; Burstow [1988] AC 147 - D made many silent phone calls to approximately
three women. Could such conduct amount to an assault?
,- HoL held that words and gestures can constitute assault. “The proposition that a gesture
may amount to an assault, but that words can never suffice, is unrealistic and
indefensible. A thing said is also a thing done.”
- Violence does not include psychological injury.
- Assault- immediacy
- D caused V to apprehend immediate unlawful personal violence
- Logdon v DPP [1976] Crim LR 121 - D committed an assault by showing V a pistol in
his drawer, saying that he would hold her hostage. Courts established this as a
conviction for assault, holding that violence against V was immediate.
- Smith v Chief Superintendent of Woking Police Station (1983) 76 Cr App R 234 - D
committed an assault by looking through the window of the bedsit of V, who was in a
nightgown at the time. D’s intention was to frighten her, and he succeeded in doing so.
Courts held that this fell into the bracket of immediacy.
- Constanza [1997] 2 Cr App R 492 - D sent V 800 letters. In the last two letters, V was
assaulted as she suffered a fear of violence at some time, not excluding the immediate
future.
- Law was changed after Constanza, relating to harassment and stalking.
- Ireland; Burstow [1998] AC 147 - Lord Steyn - “Fear may dominate her emotions, and
it may be the fear that the caller’s arrival at her door may be imminent. She may fear the
possibility of immediate person violence.”
- Assault - Actus Reus issues
- D’s inability to carry out the threat?
- Logdon v DPP [1976] Crim LR 121 - D pointed at the gun in the drawer and threatened
to hold V hostage, however V was not aware that it was a fake fun. Held that it was all
about what the victim believed at the time, from a subjective perspective.
- Lamb [1967] 2 QB 981 - D and his friend were playing with a gun, neither of them
knowing how it worked. D pointed it at his friend and accidentally shot his friend in the
head, killing him. Court held that there was no assault as neither of them knew how the
gun worked.
- D’s words negating the threat in D’s actions?
- Tuberville v Savage (1669) 1 Mod Rep 3 - D and V are arguing. D put his hand on his
sword and said, “If it were not assize time, I would not take such language”.
- D’s words as a conditional threat?
- Read v Coker (1853) 13 CB 850 - V was in D’s workshop. V was asked to leave and D
refused to do so. D and his servants surrounded him and threatened to break his neck if
he did not leave. The court held that this was an assault.
- Assault - Mens Rea
- D must intentionally or recklessly cause V to apprehend the infliction of immediate
unlawful violence.
, - Intention or recklessness will suffice
- Venna [1976] QB 421 - leading authority for this.
- Subjective or objective recklessness?
- Brady [2006] EWCA Crim 2413
- Endorsed G [2003] UKHL 50 (subjective recklessness) applying throughout the
criminal law.
- Battery -
- “A battery consists of the infliction of unlawful personal violence by D upon V which D,
either intentionally or recklessly.”
- Violence?
- “The law cannot draw the line between different degrees of violence, and therefore
prohibits the first and lowest stages of it; every man’s person being sacred, and no other
having a right to meddle with it, in any the slightest manner.” Blackstone (1760s),
Commentaries, iii, 120, cited by Goff LJ in Collins v Wilcock, at 378.
- Battery - D inflicted unlawful person ‘violence’
- Violence or mere contact?
- Faulkner v Talbot [1981] 3 AII ER 468 - Lord Lane at 471 - “an intentional touching of
another person without the consent of that person and without lawful excuse. It need not
necessarily be hostile, or rude, or aggressive…”
- Thomas (1985) 81 Cr App Rep 331 -
- Implied consent and ‘everyday’ personal contact?
- Cole v Turner (1704) 6 Mod Rep 149 -
- Collins v Wilcock [1984] 3 AII ER 374 - Goff LJ - “Generally speaking, consent is a
defence to battery; and most of the physical contacts of ordinary life are not actionable
because they are impliedly consented to by all who move in society and so expose
themselves to the risk of bodily contact.”
- Coward v Baddeley (1859) 4 H & N 478 -
- Battery - Actus Reus issues
- Act or Omission?
- Innes v Wylie (1844) 1 Car & Kir 257 - A policeman was trying to prevent a member of
a society from entering the clubroom. Is that enough for a battery? Courts held that this
was not enough.
- Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner [1969] 1 QB 439 - DDs drove onto a
policeman’s foot by accident. When asked to move, they did not. Thus, battery can be
conducted by omission.
- Miller [1983] 2 AC 161 -
- DPP v Santana Bermudez [2003] EWHC 2908 (Admin) - Omission also present here.
D was a drug user, and assured V, a police officer, who was about to search him, that he
