Principles of criminal liability
The three offences under the
Offences Against the Person Act
1861
Lesson Objectives
• I will be able to describe, using authority,
the actus reus and mens rea of s47, s20
and s18 of the Offences Against the
Person Act 1861
• I will be able to apply these to a given
situation
Nature of the offences
• These are the more serious personal injury offences, compared with
assault and battery
• Section 47 is the least serious offence. It is also the offence that, of
the three, gives rise to the most convictions.
Assault and battery
s47
s20
s18
Section 47
• Whoever shall be convicted on indictment of any
assault occasioning actual bodily harm shall be
liable to be imprisoned for any term not
exceeding five years
• Triable either way
• ABH (the offence requiring the consequence of
more than minimal harm to the victim)
• The actus reus has 3 elements:
– Assault
– Occasioning
– Actual bodily harm
• Assault includes both assault and battery. The first
essential part of the actus reus is to prove that there was
an assault or battery as set out in the previous lesson
• The second element, occasioning, means bringing about
the consequence – this is causation
• The third element is the key distinction. Chan-Fook
(1994) – in this case it was decided that ‘harm’ in s47 of
the OAPA includes physical or psychiatric harm
• ‘Harm’ means ‘injury’ and ‘actual’ indicates that the injury
should not be so trivial as to be ‘wholly insignificant’.
‘Bodily harm’ is not limited to harm of the skin flesh and
bones, but includes organs, nervous system and brain. It
can include psychiatric injury, but does not include
emotions or states of mind that are not in themselves
evidence of an identifiable medical condition. Where
there is expert evidence of psychiatric injury, the injury is
capable of ABH (Chan-Fook)
• Smith (2006) – in this case it was decided that
ABH can include all parts of the body including
the hair
• The mens rea of the offence is intention or
recklessness as to assault or battery
• Roberts (1971) – this case is authority for the
proposition that mens rea for s47 OAPA is
intention or recklessness as to assault or battery
• Savage (1991) – this case confirmed the mens
rea for s47 OAPA as set out in Roberts (1971),
that is where a crime states the mens rea as
‘maliciously’, this requires either intention or
recklessness
Section 20
• Whoever shall unlawfully and maliciously wound or inflict
any grievous bodily harm upon any person, either with or
without any weapon or instrument, shall be guilty of an
offence
• Triable either way
• Correct name can be either malicious wounding or
inflicting GBH
• The actus reus has 3 elements:
– Unlawful
– Wound
– Grievous bodily harm
• The first element is that the act must be unlawful. In the
context of s20, this usually means that there must have
been no consent to the act
• The second element is the definition of a wound.
Wounding requires there to have been a break in the
surface of the skin; this is both layers of the skin and is
therefore seen to be an open wound, usually with blood
loss – JCC v Eisenhower (1984) – this case explained
that a wound requires breaking of both layers of the skin
• The third, separate, element is that of GBH. This has
been defined in various ways such as ‘really serious’
harm. This means that it is a phrase that should be given
its ordinary and natural meaning in the circumstances of
the case – Brown and Stratton (1998) – in this case a
collection of relatively minor injuries amounted to GBH
• The mens rea required is set out on the
definition of the Act as ‘maliciously’. The court
confirmed in Savage (1991) that ‘maliciously’
meant intentionally or recklessly
• Therefore, in order to prove that the defendant
acted maliciously, it is sufficient to prove that he
intended his act to result in some unlawful bodily
harm to some other person, albeit of a minor
nature, or was subjectively reckless as to the
risk that his act might result in such harm.
• There is no requirement that the intent or
recklessness must be as to anything more than
that some harm might occur
Section 18
• Whoever shall unlawfully and maliciously by any
means whatsoever wound or cause any
grievous bodily harm to any person, with intent
to do some grievous bodily harm to any person
or with intent to resist or prevent the lawful
apprehension or detainer of any person
• Triable only on indictment
• The actus reus is either wounding or GBH set
out in s20
• The mens rea is that the defendant must
be ‘malicious’ but in addition he must be
proved to have had further specific intent,
in that it must have been the defendant’s
intention either to do some GBH to the
victim or to resist or prevent a lawful arrest
or detention
• Belfon (1976) – it was decided in this case
that for there to be a conviction under s18
of OAPA, the defendant must have had
the specific intent to do GBH or resist
arrest
Exam Qs