non-fatals evaluation

• Lengthy paragraph good place to bring in knowledge
• Language doesn’t make sense for assault and battery suggests physically being battered and when people hear about assault they tend to think you’ve been physically harmed

  Reform was to make it threatened assault this would fix the misconception

  Grievous is an old-fashioned term (1861) meaning serious harm good thing is that cases have come in to explain what this term means DPP V Smith
• Change it to intentionally causing serious injury

  ‘bodily harm’ is also strange (1861) understanding of Victorians limited medically has been tweaked and stretched now to include a whole range of situations like psychiatric harm Burstow and biological disease Dica but is a positive thing now that we include psychiatric and other wide range of things and includes cutting hair, but this means the phrasing needs updating ‘injury’- reform proposals but may still not help with cases of HIV and depression but only with bodily harm maybe injury/ illness but still better than grievous bodily harm
• Or how malicious suggest evil but we only know it means reckless due to studying the law the public will not understand this 
• Sentencing:

  Injury can be same but level of intent varies the sentence and section. May only receive five years if can only prove mr for some harm e.g. putting someone in coma is serious harm on victim but you only receive five years.

  Maybe should be more middle way, five years could be increased 

  Both s.20 and s.47 have 5 years but very different how do they have the same max sentence for cutting hair and life changing injuries 

  s.20 gbh can be step up in the middle 
• reform; replace s.47 with intentionally or recklessly causing injury which would have 5 years

  get rid of s.20 and s.18 recklessly cause serious injury- 7 years then intentionally causing serious injury up to life- more clarity- the punishment has to fit the crime and the current sentences don’t feel this way 
• Reform wasn't accepted and often isn't as cases have allowed us to develop.
• Law can still be relevant even if reform isn't accepted, as demonstrated by the case of biological weapons.
• Law can deal with new situations like COVID-19, as demonstrated by the case of Ireland.
• Law has flexibility and adaptability, as demonstrated by the phrases of serious harm.
• HIV is no longer a life sentence but still a big deal, and law has flexed to deal with a new situation.
• More definitions on serious harm may not be necessary, as law will never be able to legislate to fit all modern and technical situations.
• ABH:

  Assault or battery abh led to an injury you haven’t intended however the mr and ar need to match e.g. only wanted to scare but resulted in serious harm causation wise still at fault but if capped at only wanting to scare wouldn’t be fair on the victim if no punishment should be responsible for the cause and affect but also unfair on D- can be argued both ways. U cant go around shoving people as it could result in harm tho 
• Sentencing: s.18 trying to resist arrest- intention doesn’t match outcome when causing serious harm however trying to resist lawful arrest as a result of that have caused serious injury- huge jump tho up to life bit extreme could be separate offence in itself dealt with on merits of each case to decide sentence e.g. causing serious injury when resitting arrest and causing some injury while resisting arrest. 
• sentencing: all can go up but mainly assault and battery (up to a year) if racially motivated/ hate crimes etc. 

  Assault- (s.39 CJA 1988) up to 6 months 

  Battery- (s.39 CJA 1988) up to 6 months 

  Assault/ battery occasioning ABH- up to 5 years (s.47 OAPA 1861)

  GBH without intent- up to 5 years (s.20 OAPA 1861)

  GBH with intent- up to life imprisonment (s.18 OAPA 1861)

  Wounding without intent- up to 5 years (s.20 OAPA 1861)

  Wounding with intent- up to life imprisonment (s.18 OAPA 1861)