In R v Ireland, R v Burstow, Lord Steyn said: The proposition that the Victorian legislator when enacting sections 18, 20 and 47 of the Act 1861, would not have had in mind psychiatric illness is no doubt correct.
Psychiatry was in its infancy in 1861.In modern times, the practice of statutory interpretation frequently refers to the actual intention of the draftsman as expressed in the words of the Act, but considered in the light of contemporary knowledge.
said the prosecution "chose to introduce into the case an allegation that even if Mr Martins had suffered no physical injury at all as a result of the assault upon him by the Appellant, he had nevertheless been reduced to a mental state which in itself, without more, amounted to actual bodily harm.
There was no evidence that he was in a state of shock at any time prior to receiving the injuries which he suffered as a result of falling from the window."
However, to qualify, those neuroses must be more than simple states of fear, or problems in coping with everyday life, which do not amount to psychiatric illnesses.
Venereal and other communicable disease See R v. Dica [2004] EWCA Crim 1103 The Law Commission stated its view that "the deliberate or reckless causing of disease should not be beyond the reach of the criminal law" and there is continuing debate over whether the transmission of HIV is covered as grievous bodily harm or under sections 22 to 24 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861.
[6] Hawkins J. said: In this condition of things the prisoner had sexual intercourse with his wife and in doing so communicated to her his disease and thereby caused her grievous bodily harm.
[7]Field J. said (a footnote has been included in the body of the text, indicated by "(1)"): It is, I think, also clear that if the condition of the man is such that it is an ordinary and natural consequence of the contact to communicate an infectious disease to the woman, and he does so, he does in fact inflict upon her both "actual" and "grievous bodily harm."