Application across the book’s scenarios
| Scenario | Possible application |
|---|---|
| Care home | Unlawful striking, rough handling, forced treatment or restraint may be assault and may occasion ABH or GBH depending on injury and mens rea. Lawful consent, necessity and statutory authority require separate analysis. |
| Sheltered or supported housing | A tenancy or support agreement gives no licence to use unlawful force. Staff control of access, medication or mobility may supply evidence, but poor housing support alone is not assault. |
| Care denial | An omission can found criminal liability only where the law recognises responsibility for the omission and the charged offence’s causation and mental element are proved. Negligence alone is insufficient for sections 18 or 20. |
| Community care | Unlawful restraint in a vehicle, clinic or public place is analysed by the same offence elements; being outside a care building neither creates nor removes liability. |
| Child removal | Reasonable force under lawful authority differs from unlawful violence. Psychiatric illness following separation can be bodily harm in principle, but the prosecution still needs an assault, causation and the required mens rea. |
| What would usually be insufficient | Distress without the required assault, accidental injury, reasonable and proportionate lawful force, or serious harm caused only by negligence. |
Assault offences require their own conduct, injury, causation and mental elements. Section 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 concerns assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Section 20 concerns unlawful and malicious wounding or infliction of grievous bodily harm. Section 18 requires the further statutory intent. Negligence, distress or an unlawful administrative decision does not automatically become assault or GBH.
Care denial
A deliberate act may clearly constitute assault. An omission can support criminal liability only where omission principles, a duty, causation and the mental element of the charged offence are established. Serious injury from missed care is not enough if the defendant was merely negligent and lacked the required intent or recklessness.
Child removal and psychiatric injury
A recognised psychiatric illness can amount to bodily harm in appropriate cases, but grief or distress following separation does not automatically prove assault, causation or mens rea. The act that constitutes the assault and its unlawfulness must be identified independently of the removal’s emotional impact.
Evidence
Identify the act or legally relevant omission, the defendant’s duty, intent or recklessness, medical diagnosis, timing, alternative causes and proof that the conduct caused the charged level of injury.