ABH or GBH?

Hey all,

I'm confused as to whether this scenario is ABH or GBH. D (lorry driver) is speeding away from the police. A container tumbles off the back of D's lorry and the police officer crashes into it and suffers serious injuries.

I would class this as GBH but apparently ABH equates to serious injuries as well but GBH is more serious. The scenario is vague so I'm not sure.


Thanks

The most suitable offences would be:

s.20 of the 1861 Act (GBH) or s.18 of the 1861 Act (GBH with intent).

The lorry driver could (potentially) be charged with either:

s.20 requires a mens rea of recklessness as to some bodily injury occurring.

S.18 covers an intention to resist apprehension, providing there was malice as to grievous bodily harm. Malice in this context, means that the defendant must foresee the possibility of causing GBH. So the key issue to discuss is his foresight. Note the difference in the level of foresight required for s.18 and s.20.

In practice, you would charge with s.18 (as it carries the greater possible sentence), as the jury can return alternative verdicts of liability under s.20 or s.47(ABH) if they are not convinced beyond reasonable doubt regarding the s.18 elements.

Would it be bad if I couldn't really touch upon the topic of GBH because I literally had no more room left to talk about anything else? I have a word limit

You would need to deal with s.18 at a minimum. The scenario you posted in the OP is clearly pushing you in that direction. If word count is a serious issue, you can simply consider the application of s.18, and then state in a single sentence that if the mens rea of s.18 cannot be satisfied, there could be liability under s.20. You don't need to consider ABH (s.47) if space is limited. Your facts clearly specify that the injuries were serious, this seems to rule out ABH (see e.g. case law which defines GBH such as R v Smith 1961).

That's bad then because I have 0 space to write about it and if I cut anything out then I'm cutting important details out. Would I at least pass if I still didn't mention GBH or is that a fail? I don't know why they have such a small word limit if there's so many issues.

You won't fail automatically because you don't mention the issue, but you are essentially throwing away an entire portion of the marks. Exactly how many marks you are sacrificing, no-one can tell you without reviewing the whole question.

When tackling a question like this, your first step is always to identify all the issues first. Then plan your answer and split your word count accordingly depending on what issues you expect will require more words to resolve.

The best advice is to simply spend some time editing your existing answer to make it more concise. Word count is often wasted on overly long descriptions of case law (when one sentence summarising the ratio would usually suffice), excessive quotation (when paraphrasing would be fine), or verbiage.

Not a fail but if you don’t talk about one major issue then you probably are capped at a 2.2. We have to mention all major issues and most minor for a 2.1.
Cutting down the other sections is the best idea. They can’t mean you to go into that much detail if it’s 3 totally separate issues in 1000 word essay.