Rhonda on the sofa. For a while she finds this enjoyable but then becomes breathless, as she suffers from asthma. She tells Stefan to stop, but he carries on. In attempting to escape Rhonda jumps off sofa, as a consequence of which she twists her ankle causing it to swell up and this gives her considerable pain. Stefan apologizes and bends over Rhonda to help her up. This has the consequence of breaking Rhonda’s leg. Stefan takes her to hospital where due to medical error, Rhonda is given an overdose of a palliative drug. This sends Rhonda in a coma. She regains consciousness a few days later with no ill effects. Discuss Answer: (1) This question deals with Rhonda and Stefan who are partners and one day while getting tickled by Stefan, Rhonda got breathless and she told Stefan to stop tickling her but he did not, while escaping, she jumped off from the sofa, which resulted in painful twist of her ankle and swelling of it Stefan giving her a hand to help fell over her causing to break her leg. Then Stefan took her to the hospital, where she went into a coma due to overdose of medicine. She regained consciousness after some days. (2) This is question of Non-fatal offences, Rhonda was injured severely due to simple lawful act of tickling from Stefan, main point arises as Stefan should had to for see the consequence of his tickling, and should have stopped it, as it might have caused any kind of harm and injury (3) Here one of the main arguments is about “consent” and how far someone can go in relation to a type of activity which involves harm to the other person, but where there is consent, there is a line for avoiding the harm. (4) Important point is here circumstances, which shows that minor negligence of Stefan created grievous bodily harm of Rhonda. We can take example of Bollom here. Defendant was convicted when 17 month – old child suffered bruises to abdomen, arms and legs and in this case the defendant was convicted of more serious offences based on age of the victim (child). This case also clears this point that while creating liability particular circumstances and vulnerability of a victim should be considered. Here Stefan’s offence is under section 20 and Section 47 of the Offences against The Person act 1861 . (5) The mere fact that Rhonda withdraws her consent, does not make Stefan’s act of tickling unlawful as in case of R v Aitken in this case defendant during the course of celebrations on completing their training, as a practical joke, the had taken to setting fire to officers wearing their fire resistant clothing, but one was seriously burned, so the defendant was convicted of Grievous bodily harm under section 20 Offences Against the Persons Act 1861. It was held that the defendant believed that the officer had consented, so it was open for the judge to held so no offence was committed. (6) In this question simple tickling by Stefan to Rhonda created actual bodily harm (AHB) in shape of the unlawful force to another person (psychic, or simple assault like R v Jones and case R v Aitken) which comes under section 47 OAPA 1861 and due to causal connections between acts converted into Grievous Bodily Harm(GBH) (7)Can the self-inflicted injury break the chain of causation? Or it should be considered as an accident, so here we can take the example of case R v Roberts 1972, in that case the defendant touched the victim on the knee. Fearing a sexual attack, victim jumped out of the car, in this case court said that the injury had causal chain linking with act of defendant. As this was held in case of Savage 1992 that it was not necessary for the prosecution to prove actual foresight of harm for defendant to be guilty under section 47. In savage victim was injured by beer glass, the offence was made out upon proof that defendant intended to throw beer at victim. (8) Here another issue arises that does overdose of medicine breaks the chain of causation? We can assess in the light of cases Smith and Cheshire, in the case of Smith (1959), victim was stabbed and had a wound in his lungs, before reaching the hospital to get medical attention, he took artificial respiration which was not good for the person with punctured lungs so he died, although the intervening acts contributed to the death, Smith’s acts were still cause of harm and operative, so he was convicted. And in case of Cheshire, the defendant shot the victim in the abdomen, he was operated after which he suffered breathing difficulties so a tracheotomy was done, although his wounds were healed, he still died due to negligence in performing tracheotomy. It was held that bad medical treatment did not relieve defendant from conviction. (9) It simply will aver that we can imply the actus reus of Offence of section 20 and section 47, as Stefan did an un lawful act(tickling) which resulted in the injuries sustained for example tickling caused the injury not the omission to stop tickling! It should be in mind that defendant will say that tickling was not unlawful, as it was a part of horse play both were enjoying it, start of causal link was voluntary, and chain of causation was broken due to voluntary falling down from sofa, fracture of leg by accidental fall of Stefan and then overdose of palliative drug by doctor, so Stefan could not be liable for any offence in this situation.