gbh section 18

[helen4eva]

my bf has recently been charged with gbh now theres a story behind this and it was self defence and i saw everything. my bfs and two friends were having a drink on friday night and one of his friends where really drunk he was drinking special brew so near the end of the night my bf went to bed as he had had enough. his two friends was sat in the living room with me and i caught his friend stealing some drink that wasnt his i challenged him and he got quite defensive and backed me up in the corner calling me every name under the sun i was scared so told him to leave and even opened the door to let him out but he wouldnt go so my bfs comes down stairs to see whats happening and told him to go but he wouldnt so they ended up fighting and me and my bfs other friend couldnt get his friend off my bf, we managed to get this boy out of the door and i told him if he didnt leave id ring the police but he just went in to the rage and started trying to smash the windows and smash all the porch up. the door was closed and i was lent against it to stop him coming in. he bent the door handle trying to get back in and spilt the door panel he then pushed his way in and knocked me to the flootr and went for my bf. when i got up they were fighting over something and the man hes 25 recieved a cut to his neck and ran out of the house. now my boyfriend has been locked up for this due to his past of resisting arrest (3 years ago) and the man decided to press charges. now there was a chocolate cake on the side and my bfs grabbed a knife off the kitchen side ( the boy recieved his injurys in the kitchen)what do you think will come out of this??

[redcrx]

self defence? did the friend have a knife too then?

self defence can only be used up to a certain point. Stabbing someone really isnt self defence if there was a chance to get away from the attacker.

Has your bf pressed charges too?

[helen4eva]

he hasnt had chance but my bfs head got cut open when we first got this man out of the house so he was assualted first

[redcrx]

so thats when you called the police then??

[helen4eva]

like i said i didnt have chance becuase he was smashed the porch up and breaking the door and we were trying to keep him out of the house because he was really violent

[Seadragon]

As i understand it, you're mate should plead not-guilty and go for self-defence as 'intention to cause or inflict serious injury or harm' seems to be lacking in his version of events. And then the jury will be directed by the Judge to consider whether your friend acted 'reasonably and proportionly' to the attack.

[redcrx]

3 of you, 1 of him and he was outside at one point and you couldnt call the police.

You can only now rely on your own witness statements to the jury.

search on this site for some links to what section 18 could give in terms of sentencing if found guilty.

you may want to take a look here and at the section refering to provocation http://www.sentencing-guidelines.gov.uk/docs/a ssault-against-the%20person.pdf

i still cant understand why no-one called the police, even as the man ran away

[helen4eva]

as soon as this happened i rang an ambluance and stayed with the man and so did my bf the other lad was no help at all and didnt have a clue what to do but you have got to understand that i was protecting my boyfriends home and this man was really on one and was actually kicking the door and my bf did recieve a bad injury to his head and had to have his head glued