Wounding With Intent and Malicious Infliction of Grievous Bodily Harm Essay

Wounding With Intent and Malicious Infliction of Grievous Bodily Harm or Wounding - Essay Example This paper illustrates that because Stan did not intend to cause grievous bodily harm but only intended to instill fear in Helen, his mental state is insufficient to establish the mens rea requirement for wounding with intent. Malice, however, which is the required state of mind for malicious infliction of grievous bodily harm or wounding, can be inferred by the defendant’s conduct and is unrelated to his motive, according to the leading case of Re A (children) (conjoined twins) [2000] 4 All ER 961. While Stan claims that he did not intend to inflict bodily injuries, and his motive was to make her afraid rather than to hurt her, general malice can be inferred by his act of throwing a bottle directly at Helen. Thus, the mens rea requirement for the lesser offenses of malicious infliction of grievous bodily harm or malicious wounding is all that can be established from the facts. Depending on whether or not Helen’s injuries were a wound or were grievous under the Offences Against The Person Act of 1861 s.20, Stan may have committed a malicious infliction of grievous bodily harm or malicious wounding. The Act prohibits the unlawful and malicious wounding of another person (meaning the â€Å"breaking of the continuity of the whole of the outer skin, or the inner skin within the cheek or lip†) as well as the unlawful and malicious infliction of grievous, or serious, bodily harm (a jury question). If both a wound and grievous bodily harm exist, R v McCready [1978] 1 WLR 1376 mandates that the correct charge is unlawful wounding. The bottle that Stan threw at Helen caused a deep cut that required stitches. Thus the breaking of the skin requirement for unlawful wounding is clearly met. Grievous bodily harm may also be present since such a deep cut is arguably serious according to the plain meaning of the word, but this question does not need to be addressed since the holding in McCready requires that the charge be unlawful wounding under s.20 if a wound is present. Thus, the crime that Stan probably committed is malicious wounding.