GBH section 20 'wounding without intent'

[worriedguy]

Hi, first I'll describe what has happened. A few months ago, I was out drinking with a couple of friends when a guy came up to us and grabbed my friends breasts. I wasn't looking at the time but she told him in no uncertain terms to go away and he did. She then told me what had happened and I (like an absolute idiot) wanted him to apologise to her and went over to him, I was drunk at this stage, but not in an aggresive frame of mind, more like I was being very naive in thinking I could talk to him and it be amicable. I began speaking to him, and at first he spoke back, though quickly he became aggressive and attacked me (attempting to gouge out my left eye) I fell backwards into a crowd of people and he continued to attack, at some point in the scuffle the side of his face was close to mine and in a panic and to stop him attacking me I bit his ear as it was in front of my mouth. We were pulled apart by people in the club, I immediately stood back away from him and other had to hold him back to stop him continuing to attack me. The police came and I was arrested and later charged with gbh section 20 wounding without intent. The other person invloved is saying that I bit him whilst we were talking and he attacked me to defend himself. The cctv unfortunately doesn't show very much (he is obscuring me at the beginning, which is when he claims I bit him). You can clearly see him take me from one side of the club to the other by my eye socket, and there was small cuts around my eye corresponding with this, but then at the end of the fight when I actually caused the injury to him we are again hidden by a crowd of people. Obviously I have pled not guilty as whilst I did not wish to cause anyone harm, I did so in self defence. I have no previous record, have a 5 year old son and I'm a 2nd year university student. Essentially I'm hoping someone can tell me the likelihood of being found guilty and if so the possible/likely sentence. Sorry for rambling. Thank you in advance.

[fredpuli47]

Are now you're asking !First of all you must choose trial by jury. The magistrates court trial is an option for you but not one you should take .

In the end it will depend on what the jury feel about it.They'll see the complainant and any witnesses, they'll see you and if they think it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, or might have been so or they are really not sure that you were the attacker or not sure you were going beyond what was necessary and reasonable to defend yourself, they'll acquit.

Self defence is using reasonable and necessary force to defend yourself. But .the judge will direct them to apply common sense to 'reasonable' in self-defence. If the jury think that, under attack or the imminent threat of it, you , 'in the agony of the moment' used no more than appeared to you, a normal person, to be reasonable and necessary force to defend youself at that instant, then that is the reasonable self defence. It may in fact, have been more than was strictly necessary but common sense dictates that someone in that position can't weigh to a nicety the precise degree of force needed.. They can hardly halt, step back, and consider exactly how hard the blow needs to be to save themselves or in your case decide whether a bite is just enough or too much!

Being drunk doesn't help you. It doesn't provide a defence , obviously,but you must accept that people take offence more easily,, do things they wouldn't do sober. On the other hand, the other man was not likely to have been stone cold sober either and may well have felt unusually irritated by you, such that he would hit you,. Your counsel will know how best to deal with this aspect.

Your case sounds very 'runnable' as counsel say, but it's quite impossible to predict or say how well it will go . We haven't seen the evidence, after all. You should definitely plead not guilty, on what you say.

[fredpuli47]

Eddie is wrong (and not legally qualified) to say that the fact that you admit you bit his ear mans that you have admitted s20 and must plead guilty..If that were the case the defence of self defence wouldn't exist in law. You were attacked by another and in the scuffle you bit him to stop the attack.You were yourself injured.The only question for the jury is whether, in the circumstances you found yourself in, that was an excessive and unjustified use of force, not reasonable in self defence, bearing in mind the 'in the agony of the moment' and not being able to 'weigh to a nicety' points made in my earlier answer. [Those expressions, and the reasoning, are taken from of the judgment of Lord Morris in the leading case Palmer v R. [1971] A.C.814 in the Privy Council, approved and followed by the Court of Appeal in McInnes v R 55 Cr App.R.551.]

And you would have been entitled to use reasonable force in self-defence if you feared that you were about to be hit .There's no law that says you must wait until the blow lands !

[worriedguy]

Thank you both very much for your answers, it has settled my mind just to know a little more about what the jury should be directed to consider. All I'm hoping now is that this is resolved quickly either way, so I can either get on with my life or start re-building it as I'm fairly sure any custodial sentence would abolish my chances of finishing my degree. Thank you both again for your time.

[factorfiction]

Is this a recent incident? I am pretty sure this question has been asked on here before- quite some time ago?

[worriedguy]

No I haven't asked before, it is fairly recent. I saw similar questions on here but with many I read the injuries caused seemed to be much more severe, or they were not in self defence, so I wanted to get an opinion for my specific circumstance. To further clarify and ask another question if I may, the man suffered an injury on a similar level to what you might expect if an earing got caught and pulled out, also I've been told by others that have seen him recently, he now has no visible scarring. It did require stitches though, I am positive of that as I was told by the police. I know very little about these things of course, but one thing that strikes me is that all of the other descriptions of injuries leading to section 20 seem to be much much more severe than this (fractured skulls being one I have seen mentioned repeatedly) so I'm wondering why is it that this is being put in the same category?

[fredpuli47]

worriedguy , s20 covers two distinct types of injury. It begins "Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously wound or inflict any grievous bodily harm...." So the injury may be a wound or it may be grievous bodily harm.The section is charged as either one or the other. A wound is some injury that breaks the surface of the skin. Your action did that and you are charged with s20 wounding.

'Grievous bodily harm' would include a fractured skull.( 'Grievous' means 'really serious bodily harm'. You have to blame the Victorians for the archaic language. The Act was passed in 1861)

Curiously, an assault occasioning 'actual bodily harm' covered by s47 of the same act, and which we think of as a lesser offence, has the same maximum penalty as s20 (5 years). Blame the Victorians again. Their statutes make everything far too complicated, creating many differently named offences and different sections for what is essentially the same thing, sometimes with the same penalties. Their law of theft, 'larceny' as they called it; distinguished burglary by night from burglary by day and had umpteen differently described ways of stealing, for example, and the Offences against the Person Act is an example of that approach, though it has been simplified somewhat by later acts...