NFO eval

• NFO

  Non-fatal offences
• NFO


  • 5 non-fatal offences, in the CIA 1988 and OAPA 1861
• Common law


  Assault, battery, section 47 ABH, GBH 20, GBH s.18
• Assault (Fagan v MPC)


  Where the D intentionally or recklessly causes the victim to apprehend immediate unlawful personal violence
• Battery (Rv Ireland)


  The defendant intentionally or recklessly applies unlawful force upon the victim
• ABH


  Assault or battery that causes ABH
• Section 20


  Whoever shall unlawfully and maliciously wound or inflict any GBH with/without a weapon, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour
• Section 18


  Same as section 20 but resisting arrest (Rv Morrison)
• Lack of codification
• Codification


  The action or process of arranging laws or rules according to a system or plan
• Cannot be found within 1 statue
• Makes law unnecessarily complex, specifically for juries
• Large amount of NFO has been created through common law
• Makes this undemocratic, unconstitutional and goes against separation of powers
• OAPA is over 150 years old
• Mental illness was not understood, so act only refers to bodily harm
• Does not reflect modern understanding of psychiatric harm
• Psychiatric harm is taken much more seriously now
• Language is confusing and archaic, harder for jury to understand
• No clear definitions for each offence
• Language not appropriate for modern day
• "Maliciously" now suggests something is done deliberately, rather than the actual meaning which is reckless as to cause some harm
• Undemocratic-Judges have had to use judicial precedent to fill gaps. Case: Chan fook
• Fault

  Legal blameworthiness
• Liability

  Responsible or answerable in law; legally obligated
• Several offences find D guilty of an act they did not intend, unjust
• One key principle of criminal law is that D must foresee consequence
• True for assault and battery as AR and MR match each other
• For ABH D only needs intent or to be reckless as to cause assault or battery
• For s.20 D only needs to foresee some harm (R v Parmenter)
• For s 18 D has to have intent to resist or prevent an arrest (R v Morrison)
• Unjust on D
• Law commission 2015 stated that "it is generally desirable he (D) intended the result, or knowingly took the risk of it”
• No clear hierarchy of offences
• Assault and battery same sentence, but battery is more serious
• Assault and ABH have same MR but D can be sentenced to 5 years, not fair
• S.20 and ABH have same max sentence of 5 years, but s.20 is more serious
• Shows there's no clear hierarchy
• Society cannot differentiate between seriousness
• LC 2015 stated "the difficulty is that the hierarchy is not based on unifying logical criterion”