Assault: Liability

[Flash Card 1 of 1]

• Common assault / lowest level offence against the person
• Not defined in statute / evolved through case law
• Maximum prison 6 months / summary offence (s39 Criminal Justice Act 1988)

Actus reus:

• D causes V to apprehend immediate & unlawful violence
• No need for physical contact / emphasis on what V thought or feared
• D pointed replica gun at V / joke / V terrified / held V apprehended immediate violence / D was reckless (Logdon)
• D entered garden / looked through window / V feared D about to enter room / held assault / despite locked window (Smith v Chief Superintendent of Woking Police)
• D terrorised V / silent phone calls / caused psychiatric injury (Ireland)
• Liberal approach interpreting immediate / to give justice to V
• .. when one is in a state of terror, one is very often unable to analyse precisely what one is frightened of as likely to happen next... (Smith v Chief Superintendent of Woking Police)
• Immediacy in phone calls / V fear calls were to establish if at home (Ireland)
• Letters read as threats can be sufficient (Constanza)

Mens rea:

• ..intention to cause the victim to apprehend unlawful and immediate violence or reckless whether such an apprehension be caused... (Savage)
• Either direct or oblique intent / or subjective recklessness (as defined in Cunningham)

bits of law