Assault and battery — the two offences gathered under the label of common assault, and the foundation on which the more serious offences against the person are built.
Neither offence requires any injury at all, which is exactly what makes the boundaries between them worth knowing precisely. This chapter starts with an overview of how common assault is structured, tried and sentenced, then takes each form in turn: assault, where the victim apprehends immediate unlawful force, and battery, where unlawful force is actually applied — however slight, direct or indirect. It then sets out the shared mens rea of intention or recklessness, including transferred malice, before working through the main answers to a charge: consent, the effect of fraud, self-defence, mistaken belief and the householder rule. It closes with voluntary intoxication and the line that separates common assault from assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
