Non Fatal Offences Against the Person Flashcards
(39 cards)
What are the NFOAPs?
Assault, battery, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, malicious wounding or maliciously inflicting GBH, wounding of causing GBH with intent, administering a noxious thing, administering a noxious thing so as to endanger life
What is assault
Fagan v MPC
An act which intentionally, or recklessly, causes another person to apprehend immediate and unlawful personal violence
AR for assauly
An act causing a person to apprehend infliction of immediate and unlawful personal violence
Assault: What is an act?
Using words (R v Wilson - get out the knives)
or
silence (R v Ireland)
However, words can also negate an assault (Tuberville v Savage)
Assault: apprehend?
In the Oxford dictionary defines it as ‘understand’ or ‘perceive’
The D must cause the victim to BELIEVE he will carry out the threat (R v Lamb, russian roulette).
It irrelevant whether he CAN carry out the threat (Logdon v DPP, gun in draw)
Assault - unlawful?
Must be no consent, self-defence or necessity
Assault - immediate?
No threat of immediate violence (Tuberville v Savage).
Fear dominates emotions, rationally cannot apprehend what will realistically happen next (Ireland/Burstow, Smith v Chief Supt Woking Police Station - stalking outside window).
Threatening to inflict future harm is unlikely to constitute an assault (Thomas v NUM)
Hand-delivered letters imply he could be nearby (R v Constanza)
Assault - personal violence?
Ireland/Burstow - physical violence.
Assault - MR
Intentionally or recklessly causing the victim to apprehend immediate and unlawful personal force (R v Venna)
Assault - MR - intention
given its ordinary meaning of aim or purpose (R v Maloney)
Ommission - general rule and case
R v Smith (William) - “An omission, without a duty, will not create an offence”
R v Gibbons and Proctor - duty to feed child so omission not okay
Assault - MR - recklessness
Cunningham recklessness test (R v Savage)
A person is reckless if:
They are subjectively aware of a risk at the time they commit the offence,
and
Unreasonably went on to take the risk in the circumstances
Battery - what is it?
Battery is the actual application of unlawful force to another person without their consent (Fagan v MPC)
Battery - AR
the unlawful application of force (Ireland / Burstow)
Battery - AR - application of force
The merest touching is sufficient (Collins v Wilcock)
Contact through clothing is sufficient (R v Thomas)
There is no requirement that the application of force be hostile, rude or aggressive (Faulkner v Talbot)
The force may be applied indirectly (Haystead v DPP (punch drop baby); DPP v K (acid))
Battery - AR - unlawful?
Ordinary, everyday contact is not unlawful (Collins v Wilcock)
Battery - MR
Intentionally or reckless applying force (R v Venna)
Battery - continuing act
If, for example, at the initial moment of application there is consent but this is later withdraw coincidence of the AR and MR can be established by using the continuing act theory (Fagan v MPC)
Assault occasioning actual bodily harm s47 - AR - what constitutes assault?
Assault or battery - DPP v Little. Must then establish AR and MR of either A or B.
Assault occasioning actual bodily harm - AR - occasioning?
The D’s act must cause actual bodily harm in both fact and law (R v Smith)
DPP v Santana-Bermudez - needle in pocket.
Assault occasioning actual bodily harm - AR - occasioning - factual causation?
‘but for’ the D’s act the victim would not have suffered ABH (R v White)
Assault occasioning actual bodily harm - AR - occasioning - legal causation?
The D must be the operating and substantial cause of the harm (R v Pagett)
It will be the substantial cause if it has made more than a slight or trifling contribution to the harm (R v Kimsey; R v Cato)
The act need not be the sole cause of the harm (R v Benge)
The action will be the operating cause if there is no valid novus actus interveniens
What are the novus actus interveniens?
The thin skull rule
The D must take his victim as he finds him (R v Hayward). He will, therefore be responsible for the full extent of the harm he causes
Medical negligence
Medical negligence generally won’t break the chain of causation (R v Smith)
It must be so potent and independent of the D’s actions as to render the D’s contribution insignificant (R v Cheshire)
Refusal of medical treatment will not break the chain (R v Holland)
Suicide
Generally will not break the chain of causation if the original wound is still the operating and substantial cause of the death (R v Dear)
Exception: if the suicide is unconnected to the original attack
Acts of the victim
The response must be reasonably foreseeable, it must be proportionate to the threat, and must have be one that could be reasonably expected (R v Williams & Davies)
The victim’s characteristics may be taken into account when considering the range of possible responses
For escape cases it must be reasonably foreseeable that the victim would attempt to escape in the way he did (R v Mackie)
The escape will not be reasonably foreseeable if the action is so daft that no reasonable person could have been expected to foresee it (R v Roberts)
Acts of a third party will only break the chain if they are ‘free, deliberate and informed’ (R v Paget)
Assault occasioning actual bodily harm - AR - actual bodily harm?
‘any hurt or injury interfering with the health or comfort of the victim (R v Miller), or not so trivial as to be wholly insignificant (R v Chan-Fook).
It must be more than trifling (R v Miller) – this is a low threshold.
