The Defence Brief

Dr Evil Brendan McCarthy, who self-styles himself Dr Evil, has entered a guilty plea to causing grievous bodily harm on several people. There’s nothing exceptional about that, except that all of Dr Evil’s victims not only asked to be seriously wounded… they actually paid for the privilege! Mr McCarthy is a tattoo artist from Wolverhampton who offered body modification to his customers. This includes tattoos, piercings and tongue splitting as well as genital beading, ear modifications and nipple removal. It seems to have been the tongue splitting, ear modification and nipple removals that formed the basis of the case against him. Dr Evil's menu Dr Evil was charged with assault occasioning grievous bodily harm, which is an offence contrary to sections 18 and 20 of the Offence Against the Person Act 1861; I gather from the press reports that Mr McCarthy was charged with the more serious version under section 18, which reads, “Whosoever shall unlawfully and ma...

In the past few days there was a spate of attacks committed in a small area of east London, presumably by the same people, over a period of around 90 minutes in which acid was thrown in the faces of moped riders who were then robbed of their vehicles. The use of acid seems to have become more common recently, although whether that is because there are more acid attacks or because they are more widely reported I don’t know. What I do know is that 10 years ago my old firm dealt with a case in which a teenage girl was gang raped over a number of days then disfigured by having caustic soda poured over her face and body. While I think it is more strictly an alkaline, lime was used centuries ago to blind attackers by pouring it on them from the battlements above. Whether acid attacks are truly new or not, the recent London attacks has led to calls for a ban of the sale of acids to the public and regulation as to who may possess them. MP Stephen Timms tweeted that carrying acid ...

The BBC are reporting that Ian Tomlinson was unlawfully killed when a police officer hit the newspaper seller with a baton and pushed him to the ground. Should the officer now face charges? There are a few potential charges: Common assault; Assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH); Assault occasioning grievous bodily harm, s.20 (GBH) Assault occasioning grievous bodily harm, s. 18 (GBH) Manslaughter. All forms of assault are basically the same; all require an assault (usually by way of battery).  The difference between the offences is the level of injury caused to the victim.  So, common assault there will be little or no injury.  The injury needed to get home on an ABH is defined as being "more than merely trifling" and GBH is commonly accepted to involve the breaking or both layers of the skin, although you'd probably find yourself facing a GBH charge if you smashed somebodies skull in without killing them The difference between the two types of GBH i...

The Sentencing Council has published new guidelines for dealing with assault cases in Magistrates' Courts.  The new guidelines are much more comphrensive than the old ones.  Broadly speaking, offences are split into three levels indicating the seriousness of injuries suffered and the culpability of the offender.  The court must then consider any aggravating or mitigating factors before selecting an appropriate starting point for sentence.  The court then must go through various steps that increase or decrease the sentence before arriving at a decision. Will this increase sentences?  Er... no. Let us look at assault with intent to resist arrest.  Under the old guidelines there were three levels of seriousness and the starting points went: Low level community order; High level community order; and  Crown Court (which means that the case is too serious for the magistrates to sentence because the sentence exceeds their maximum 6-month imprisonment p...