ABH

• ABH - Meaning


  Assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
• ABH - Definition

  • An assault which causes bodily harm
  • Includes any hurt calculated to interfere with the health of comfort of the victim.
• What is ABH defined under


  Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (OAPA 1861)
• The hurt needs to be transient and trifling (minor and short-term)
• What can the harm result from

  • Physical violence
  • Psychiatric harm
  • Victims own actions where try and escape from apprehended unlawful force of the defendant.
• In R v Miller the court stated that actual bodily harm was “any hurt or injury calculated to interfere with the health or comfort of the victim”.
• In R v Chan Fook, where the court decided that psychiatric injury could be classed as actual bodily harm, but that it must be “not so trivial as to be wholly insignificant”
• Furthermore, loss of consciousness, even for a moment, can be argued to be actual bodily harm, as illustrated by T v DPP.
• Pain is not required for the harm to be classed as ABH - DPP v Smith
• DPP v Smith

  • Where the defendant cut off the victim’s pony tail and some hair from the top of her head without her consent. As the amount of hair was substantial, the Divisional Court decided that the hair-cutting should amount to ABH.