Actual
Bodily Harm S47 - cases
Below is a
list of cases you should use when answering a scenario question on ABH.
Definition: D intends or is
subjectively reckless in inflicting unlawful personal force on V (battery) or
causing the V to apprehend immediate unlawful violence
AND
The assault
or battery causes (causation) bodily harm.
IMPORTANT: You must always apply the law on
either an assault or battery before considering the actual bodily harm issues.
Case
Name
|
Facts
|
One
fact to use in an answer
|
Law
that must be used in exam answer
|
R v Miller 1954
|
Not important
|
The meaning of ABH
|
bodily
harm .... includes any hurt or injury
calculated to interfere with the health or comfort of the V. This can include
any psychiatric harm.
|
R v Chan Fook
|
The
defendant had locked his victim in a room and questioned him robustly,
believing him to have stolen an engagement ring. He was injured while trying to escape from
the second floor room.
|
A
trivial injury would be a battery. Anything more than this would be an ABH.
For
psychiatric conditions it must be one that is recognised by a doctor.
If it
is just fear, distress or panic it can only be an assault.
|
Bodily harm
means injury. The injury has be something that is more than trivial and
insignificant.
An injury can
include any part of the body that is linked to mental or human function, for
example a recognised psychiatric condition.
Injury doesn’t
include fear or distress or panic unless there is a psychiatric condition.
|
DPP v
K
|
D
placed acid in a hot air drier to hide it from his teachers. V then used the
drier and the acid caused burns on his face.
|
Bodily harm can
be caused indirectly
|
|
Case Name
|
Facts
|
One fact to use in an answer
|
Law that must be used in exam answer
|
DPP v
Smith 2006
|
D
caused actual bodily harm to V by cutting off her pony tail. D went to the
home of his ex-partner and cut of her pony tail with kitchen scissors.
The magistrates accepted that there was no actual bodily harm; the DPP appealed. |
Cutting off a person’s hair amounted to ABH.
Harm was not limited to injury to the skin, flesh and bones and extended to
hurt and damage. That the hair cut was "dead tissue" was not
relevant.
If
paint or some other unpleasant substance were to be put on a victim’s hair
that would to could amount to actual bodily harm.
|
Bodily harm can
include any hurt or damage to the V including dead tissue such as hair.
Harm can also
include paint or other unpleasant substance put on V.
|
R v Savage
|
The
defendant had thrown a glass of beer over her husband’s former lover. The glass slipped out of her hand, broke
and cut the victim’s wrist.
|
The
HL ruled that the mens rea for the offence of assault occasioning abh was the
same as for assault or battery i.e. the defendant did not need to intend or
foresee the actual harm suffered by the victim.
|
The Mens Rea of
ABH is the same as either assault or battery. There is no need to prove the D
intended or was reckless to causing bodily harm. No MR is required for the
bodily harm.
|
