Assault occasioning grievous bodily harm (often abbreviated to GBH) is a term used in English criminal law to describe the severest forms of battery.
[1] This section now reads: Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously by any means whatsoever wound or cause any grievous bodily harm to any person, ... with intent, ... to do some ... grievous bodily harm to any person, or with intent to resist or prevent the lawful apprehension or detainer of any person, shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof shall be liable ... to be kept in penal servitude for life ...The words omitted in the first to third places specifically included shooting or attempting to shoot, and included some words considered redundant; they were repealed by section 10(2) of, and Part III of Schedule 3 to, the Criminal Law Act 1967.
In England and Wales, section 20 now reads: Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously wound or inflict any grievous bodily harm upon any other person, either with or without any weapon or instrument, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable ... to be kept in penal servitude ...The words omitted were repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1892, as for section 18.
In Northern Ireland, it reads: Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously wound or inflict any grievous bodily harm upon any other person, either with or without any weapon or instrument, shall be guilty of an offence and liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years.This was subject to the same omissions as in England; the Criminal Justice (No.
[5] A single drop of blood is sufficient, but it must fall outside the body: see JJC (a minor) v. Eisenhower (1984) 78 Cr App R 48.
It is for the judge to decide whether the word "really" needs to be used in their direction to the jury: R v Janjua and Choudhury [1999] 1 Cr App R 91, The Times, 8 May 1998, CA (in this case, as a knife with a blade at least 5+1⁄2 inches long had been used, it was not possible that something less than really serious harm was intended).
In R v Martin, shortly before the conclusion of a performance at a theatre, the defendant put out the lights on a staircase which a large number of persons had to descend in order to leave the theatre, and he also obstructed the exit by placing an iron bar across a doorway which they had in leaving to pass, and upon the lights being thus extinguished, a large proportion of the audience were seized by panic and rushed in fright down the staircase forcing those in front against the iron bar; he "inflicted" injuries which resulted by reason of the pressure and struggling of the crowd thus created on the staircase.
[8] David Ormerod said that the effect of the decision in R v Gibbins and Proctor[9] appears to be that the offence of causing grievous bodily harm under section 18 can be committed by an omission.
[14] Lord Hope of Craighead said "the word 'inflict' implies that the consequence of the act is something which the victim is likely to find unpleasant or harmful."
Lord Steyn described the actions of Burstow as follows: "During an eight-month period in 1995 covered by the indictment he continued his campaign of harassment.
In R v Wilson, R v Jenkins,[15] Lord Roskill said: In our opinion, grievous bodily harm may be inflicted ... either where the accused has directly and violently "inflicted" it by assaulting the victim, or where the accused has "inflicted" it by doing something, intentionally, which, although it is not itself a direct application of force to the body of the victim, does directly result in force being applied violently to the body of the victim, so that he suffers grievous bodily harm.In R v Clarence,[16] it appeared that at a time when the prisoner knew, but his wife did not know, that he was suffering from gonorrhoea, he had "connection" with her; that the result was that the disease was communicated to her, and that had she been aware of the prisoner's condition she would not have submitted to the intercourse.
B. D. 54 The prisoner in that case did what was certain to make people crush one another, perhaps to death, and the grievous bodily harm was as truly inficted by him as if he had hurled a stone at someone's head.
v. Taylor (1) Law Rep. 1 C. c. R. 194. decided that in the offence of "unlawfully and maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm", an assault is necessarily included.
[27] Hawkins J said that he thought that the contention that bodily harm cannot be legally said to be "inflicted" unless it has been brought about by some act amounting to an assault was untenable.
The jury were directed that if there was an intention to frighten, and injury took place as a result, the appellant was guilty of an offence under section 20.
The Court of Appeal held that an intention to frighten was not enough to constitute the necessary mens rea for section 20, and that the direction to the contrary effect was a misdirection.
They said that a properly directed jury could not in the circumstances have come to any other conclusion than that the appellant must have been aware that what he was doing was likely to cause physical injury to the victim.
In practice, malice in the case of these offences means no more than foresight of the risk of bodily harm: R v Barnes [2005] 1 Cr App R 30.
The relevant case to this exception is R v Dica[36] in which it was held that infection with an STD consists of Grievous Bodily Harm when one is aware they posess the disease and is reckless to its transmission.
Relevant cases are: In Northern Ireland, an offence under section 18 is punishable with imprisonment for life or for any shorter term.
[41] Where a person is convicted on indictment of an offence under section 20, other than an offence for which the sentence falls to be imposed under section 227 or 228 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the court, if not precluded from sentencing an offender by its exercise of some other power, may impose a fine instead of or in addition to dealing with him in any other way in which the court has power to deal with him, subject however to any enactment requiring the offender to be dealt with in a particular way.
[47] In England and Wales, section 29(1)(a) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (c 37) creates the distinct offence of racially or religiously aggravated wounding or infliction of bodily harm.