The Offences Against The Person's Act 1861

The current law on non-fatal offences is contained in the Offences Against the Persons Act 1861 (OAPA). The Offences Against the Persons Act 1861has been deemed unsatisfactory, and in 1998, the law commission issued a draft bill suggesting reforms to both structural and specific aspects of the offences. In the 1998 draft Bill, however, injury is defined as excluding “anything caused by disease”, except for the purposes of the offence of deliberately causing serious injury. The Offences Against the Persons Act 1861 was one of many pieces of legislation to consolidate numerous areas of the law into single pieces of legislation within the same year. Beside from purely consolidating the existing law, the Act reveals a lot about the political and

The structure of the Act is unsatisfactory; it shows no clear hierarchy of the offences and what differences there are between the three most commonly prosecuted offences (under sections 18, 20 and 47) they are not clearly spelt out. For example section 20 which is ‘maliciously wounding or inflicting grievous bodily harm’ is seen to be more serious than section 27 ‘assault occasioning actual bodily harm’ however the maximum penalty ‘five years’ is the same for both offences. The OAPA 1861 has been in force for over 150 years, it has been frequently amended over the years. Despite a history of criticism of many areas of the Act and many efforts to reform the Act, it still remains in heavy use: the offences in the 1861 Act form basis of over 26,000 prosecutions which happen every year. Due to the regular changes of the Act have left it in an incoherent and confusing state, which mean a lot more provisions have been repealed than currently in

An example, the decision in R v Dica reflected the views of the public, that a person should not be able to knowingly give someone a life threatening disease. Additionally, another advantage of this evolution is that these cases provide precedence, meaning that once a point is clarified it will not need to be clarified again and there can be used to resolve future case. The flexibility of the law is crucial in making sure that the law is able to progress and not be at a standstill and reflects the change in the society. Without this the law would not be able to expand. The law reform proposals, from the Criminal Law Revision Committee’s report in 1980 to the Home Office’s 1998 draft Bill, Suggest a hierarchy of offences as follows: intentionally causing serious injury, recklessly causing serious injury, intentionally or recklessly causing injury, a single offence replacing assault and battery. This reform would mean that all the non-fatal offences are found in one place, therefore making the law concise and easier for the jury to understand and not misinterpretation the law so they can apply it fairly. This will resolve the issue of the law being a “rag bag of offences” states by Prof JC Smith, 1991. In Savage and Parmenter the House of Lords confirmed that the Mens Rea compromised of