ABSTRACT

Section 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 Definition provides that it is an offence to commit ‘any assault occasioning actual bodily harm’.

Actus reus An ‘assault’ within the meaning of s 47 can consist of either an assault in the technical sense of causing someone to fear immediate unlawful violence, or in the sense of a battery (that is, the infliction of unlawful violence).