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Criminal Law - Non-fatal offences against the person (Common law offences,…
Criminal Law - Non-fatal offences against the person
Common law offences
Assault
Fagan v MPC - "intentionally or recklessly causes another person to apprehend immediate and unlawful personal violence
Confirmed in R v Ireland; Burstow
Actus Reus - causing another person to apprehend immediate and unlawful personal violence
Apprehension of personal violence
Must cause the victim to believe can and will carry out the threat of force
R v Lamb - boy shot another accidentally
Irrelevant that defendant does not have the means to carry out the threat
Logdon v DPP - showed victim a replica gun
Can be done through words and actions
R v Wilson per Lord Goddard - obiter comment that "get the knives out" could constitute a threat
R v Ireland; Bustow - confirmed (technically obiter) that silence can be constituted as a threat, therefore so can words
Tuberville v Savage - words can negate a phsyical threat and vice versa - ultimately depends on whether victim apprehends
Threat must be unlawful - no self-defence, necessity or consent
Must be immediate - generous interpretation of immediacy
Smith v Superintendent of Woking Police Station
R v Ireland; Burstow - silent phone call - Lord Steyn: "Fear may dominate her emotions, and it may be the fear that the caller's arrival at her door may be imminent"
R v Constanza - held that fear of violence occurring at some time, not excluding the immediate future, was enough to make out the offence of assault which could be committed solely by words
Violence - physical damage
Mens Rea - intending, or being reckless as to causing the victim to apprehend immediate and unlawful personal violence
R v Venna
R v Savage; Parmenter - confirmed view that Cunningham (subjective) recklessness must be established for any assault charge based on recklessness
Criminal Justice Act 1988 s39 prescribes procedures and penalties
Battery
Fagan - "the intentional, or reckless, application of unlawful force to another person"
Actus Reus - application of unlawful force to another person
Must be application of force - some contact with the victim
Collins v Wilcock per Goff LJ: "Any touching of another person, however slight, may amount to a battery"
R v Thomas - includes clothes aka grabbing by collar - Ackner LJ: "if you touch a person's clothes while he is wearing them that is equivalent to touching them"
Application of force need not be aggressive
Faulkner v Talbot - sexual act with boy under 16
Force need not be applied directly
R v Martin - closed exit doors of theatre and turned out lights - indirect battery - court gave example of defendant digging a pit which the victim then falls into
DPP v K - acid in hand drier
Can an omission constitute force?
Fagan - held that battery could not be committed by an omission, so court used continuing act theory
DPP v Santana-Bermudez - battery was constituted by omission - needles in pockets
Force applied must be unlawful - same as others - self-defence, necessity, consent - cannot consent to more than battery
Mens Rea - intentional or reckless application of force upon another
R v Venna - Cunningham recklessness - subjective - person must see the risk that his actions will inflict unlawful force on another person without their consent
Assault occasioning actual bodily harm - s47 Offences Against the Person Act 1861
Actus Reus - must be an "assault" occasioning actual bodily harm
DPP v Little - means either an assault or battery
R v Ireland; Burstow - both the actus reus and mens rea of either assault or battery must be established
"occasion" - normal principles of causation
Factual
White - "but for" test
Legal
operating and substantial cause
Pagett - caused by the defendant's culpable act
Dalloway - need not be the only cause
Benge/Kimsley - substantial - more than minimal
Operating - no intervening act and/or event should break the chain of causation
DPP v Santan - created a danger and failed to avert - exposed another to reasonably forseeable risk of injury
Actual bodily harm
R v Miller - "any hurt or injury calculated to intefere with the health or comfort of the victim" - need not be serious or permanent but must be more than transient or trifling (not and)
R v Chan Fook per Hobhouse LJ: "should not be so trivial as to be wholly insignificant" - can be identifiable clinical psychiatric condition
DPP v Smith - "while it is so attached" - falls within meaning of bodily - cut off ex-girlfriend's hair
R v Ireland; Burstow - confirmed idea about identifiable psychiatric condition - must be more than distress
DPP v T - includes momentary loss of consciousness
Mens Rea - just need mens rea for assault or battery - don't need to intend actual bodily harm
R v Savage; Parmenter - confirmed
Malicious wounding of inflicting GBH - s20 OAOA 1861
"Unlawfully and maliciously wound or inflict any GBH person either with or without any weapon or instrument"
Contains two offences
Wound - verb - to cause a wound - normal rules of causation apply
C v Eisenhower - must break both layers of skin - doesn't need to be serious
Infliction of GBH
Infliction - normal rules of causation apply
R v Wilson - assault not a prerequisite
R v Burstow - same - includes psychological injury
GBH
DPP v Smith - "really serious harm"
Saunders - just serious harm will suffice
R v Ireland - psychiatric injury applies if sufficiently serious - cause and effect need to be proved by expert evidence
R v Bollom - should consider effect on victim - taking into account age and health - baby with multiple cuts and bruises - not enough alone but serious when taken together
Mens Rea - must intend or be reckless to the causing of harm - issue is the extent that it must be intended or forseen
R v Mowatt per Lord Diplock: "It is enough that he forsaw some physical harm"
R v Savage; Parmenter - confirmed
Wounding or causing GBH with intent - s18 OAPA 1861
"Unlawfully and maliciously by any means whatsoever wound or cause grievous bodily harm to any person, with intent to do some grievous bodily harm to any person"
Again, two offences
Wounding - same as s20
Causing GBH - no difference between cause and inflict - normal rules of causation
Wilson
GBH same as s20
Mens Rea - intention to cause GBH
Not enough to forsee, as in s20 - must actually intend - even with wounding must still intend GBH
Recklessness not allowed so can consider oblique intention
Administering a poison - s24 OAPA 1861
"Unlawfully and maliciously administer to or cause to be administer to or be taken by any other person any poison or other destructive or noxious thing, with intent to injure, aggrive or annoy such person"
Actus reus
R v Kennedy - 3 distinct offences
Admnistering to - direct
R v Gillard - sprayed in face
Causing to be administered to - causing innocent third party to administer
Causing to be taken - aka putting in food
R v Gillard - meaning of administer per McNeill J: "includes conduct which not being the application of direct force to the victim still nevertheless brings the noxious thing into contact with his body
Poison, destructive or noxious thing
R v Marcus - board - per Tudor Evans LJ: hurtful, unwholesome or objectionable - should consider circumstance including nature of substnace and quantity
Mens Rea - administer either intentionally or recklessly
With intent to injure, aggrieve or annoy - either through effects of administration itself or ulterior motive
R v Hill per Robert Goff LJ: said should look at whole object - example of administering sleeping pill to rape someone - counts as intent to injure though the poison itself is not the injury
R v Weatherall - administered sleeping pill to search through wife's handbag for evidence of adultery - judge ruled no intent to injury, aggrieve or annoy
Administer a poison s23 OAPA 1861
"Unlawfully and maliciously administer to or cause to administer to or be taken by any other person any person or other destructive thing so as thereby to endanger the life of such person, or so as thereby to inflict upon such person any GBH"
Actus Reus - administer - same as s24
Poison, destructive or noxious thing
R v Cato - liable to injure in common use - aka must be inherently dangerous - applied to heroin
So as thereby to endanger life or inflict grievous bodily harm - normal rules of causation
Mens Rea - maliciously
Administered intentionally or recklessly - knew or was reckless to the fact that it was a poison
No requirement to prove intented to endanger life - just intended or was reckless to GBH
R v Cato - heroin