Criminal law

Assault Mens rea

It is the intention to cause another person to apprehend immediate unlawful violence or recklessness as to whether another person might so apprehend as per the following authority (Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner [1969] 1 QB 439; Venna [1976] QB 421; Kimber [1983] 3 All ER 316; Parmenter [1992] 1 AC 699.

Sometimes it can cause bodily harm as per s.47 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861(‘OAPA’):

“Whosoever shall be convicted on indictment of any assault occasioning actual bodily harm shall be liable to imprisonment for not more than 5 years.”

Terminology: ‘Assault’ here means common assault or battery.

S.47 offence can be separated into the following elements:

The defendant can causes an assault or battery

Which occasions actual bodily harm (‘ABH’);

The mens rea of s.47 is the mens rea of the assault or battery.

The defendant does not require to foresee that ABH will be caused to the victime as the result of assault or battery. It is only necessary to evidence that ABH was caused stricto sensus and in law by the assault or battery. In other words, no mens rea is needed in relation to ABH element of actus reus. The unique mens rea of s.47 offence is mens rea of assault or battery as per authority Parmenter [1992] 1 AC 669 (HL).

It could be done either intentionally or recklessly.

See also there are few possibilities possibilities:

Wounding another

Inflicting GBH on another

A wound must be more that a superficial scratch, but it does not have to amount to really serious harm.

To constitute a wound, the whole skin must actually be broken as per authority M’Loughlin [1838] 8 C&P 635.

Internal bleeding or a bruise, such as a rupture of the blood vessel in the eye, is not sufficient as per authority C (a minor) v Eisenhower [1984] QB 331.

The law is not clear as to there can be a wounding by omission.

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