non fatals - assault and battery

First argument

P - difficult to establish whether it’s statutory or common law as position appears that they shall be charged under s39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 DPP v Little

D - no statutory definition all case law

D+ - s39 only deals with penalties and they’re often referred to as common assault/battery even by LC so they need definitions

Second argument

P - problem of language

D - assault is used in different ways in s47 and s39 its commonly associated with a physical act which is actually battery

D+ - battery is an old fashioned word which causes confusion with the public therefore it needs to be changed and modernised

Third argument

P - both assault and battery require very little by way of force which makes them very wide offences

D - it takes on the living instruments principle as seen in Ireland, Thomas and DPP v Smith which is good in terms of law and society

D+ - the brevity of force required may seem harsh on D as the law favours the victim in this case

Reform argument

LC has pointed out that there’s a long history of reform proposals over the last 35 and in S&H ‘the case for reform of these offences against the person is compelling’

P - the 2015 proposals following the 1998 draft bill, there should be a single offence covering both types of behaviour in which the AR is causing apprehension of violence and actual violence which would close up the large scale of the two offences

D - however LC suggests that they should stay as 2 separate offences of ‘physical assault’ and ‘threatened assault’ which ultimately retains assault but removes battery

D+ - LC also suggests a new offence of ‘aggravated assault’ which consists of any physical or threatened assault that has effect of causing injury and this would fall between old assault and s47 with a max sentence of 1 year hence being a bit more lenient on D with the forms of punishment