Section 20 and Section 18 OAPA 1861 — SQE1 FLK2 Criminal Liability

A man fires an air pistol at another man and hits him just below the eye. The pellet does not go through the skin. But it ruptures blood vessels underneath, and causes severe internal bleeding. He is charged with unlawful wounding. Is that a wound? No.

Which sounds wrong. And it is one of the most reliably examined points in this topic, because the definition of a wound is narrower and far more technical than anyone expects. This episode is about the two most serious non-fatal offences: section 20 and section 18 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. The gap between them is five years and a life sentence. Keep the air pistol in mind.

Here is the route. Where these offences sit, and the two words that do all the work: wound, and grievous bodily harm. Then section 20, its actus reus and its famously low mens rea. Then section 18, and the one thing that separates them. Then transferred malice, causation, and the thin skull rule. And last, intoxication, which behaves differently for each offence.

Start with the ladder, because the exam wants you to place the offence on it. At the bottom, common assault and battery. Then assault occasioning actual bodily harm, section 47. Then section 20, unlawful wounding or inflicting grievous bodily harm. Then section 18, wounding or causing grievous bodily harm with intent. Then murder. Section 20 carries a maximum of 5 years. Section 18 carries life.

So what is a wound? A wound is a break in the continuity of the whole skin. Both layers, the outer epidermis and the inner dermis. A scratch or a graze that breaks only the outer layer is not enough. Depth counts, not width, so a small but deep cut is a wound. And the skin includes the lining of internal cavities continuous with the outer skin, such as the inside of the mouth.

Now the part that catches people. Internal bleeding is not a wound. A ruptured blood vessel is not a wound. Even a broken bone is not a wound, if the skin is intact, however serious the injury looks. And a wound does not have to be serious. A minor cut qualifies. The gravity of it goes to sentence.

Grievous bodily harm is the other route, and it means really serious bodily harm. No break in the skin is required. It covers broken bones, deep lacerations, serious bruising, organ damage, and serious psychiatric injury. And how serious is serious enough? That is fact-sensitive, and it depends on the individual victim.

In R v Bollom, from 2003, the defendant assaulted a baby of 17 months, causing bruising. The trial judge told the jury that grievous bodily harm had to be serious in the context of a normal, healthy adult. The Court of Appeal disagreed. The jury should assess the harm in the context of the particular victim. The same injury that is minor to a fit adult can be grievous bodily harm to a baby, or to an elderly person.

Which takes us back to the air pistol. Not a wound, because the skin was never broken. But severe internal bleeding? That may very well be really serious bodily harm. So the charge does not fail. It changes shape. Both a wound and grievous bodily harm satisfy the actus reus of section 20 and of section 18. You need one or the other. Never both.

Psychiatric injury counts too. Serious psychological harm can be grievous bodily harm, which matters, because a campaign of harassment or intimidation can be charged even where nobody was ever touched. Silent telephone calls, causing severe trauma. A campaign of following and letters, causing severe depression and panic attacks. But it must be a recognised medical condition. Fear, distress and embarrassment are not enough.

Section 20 now. Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously wound or inflict any grievous bodily harm upon any other person, with or without any weapon or instrument. Two elements to the actus reus. The defendant causes a wound or grievous bodily harm, and the wounding or infliction is unlawful. Unlawful means without lawful excuse, such as self-defence.

And maliciously? That is a trap dressed up as an old word. Maliciously does not mean spite. It does not require hostility or ill will towards the victim at all. It simply means intentionally or recklessly. When you see maliciously in a statute of this vintage, read it as the mens rea word and move on.

One more word to watch. Inflict has been read broadly. It does not require direct physical contact between defendant and victim. A defendant can inflict harm by setting a chain of events in motion that ends in the injury. What matters is that the defendant's act is a substantial and operating cause of the harm.

Now the mens rea, and this is the heart of the topic. For section 20, the defendant must intend or be reckless as to some physical harm. Read that again. Some physical harm. Not a wound. Not grievous bodily harm. However minor. That is R v Mowatt, from 1967, where the Court of Appeal held the prosecution need not prove the defendant intended or foresaw the harm that actually happened.

Follow the consequence through. Punch someone meaning to give them a bruise. They fall, strike their head, and suffer a serious brain injury. Section 20 is made out, because the mens rea attached to some harm, and the harm that resulted is simply worse than what you had in mind. Section 20 is sometimes called a crime of resulting harm, and that is exactly why.

But recklessness here is purely subjective. The old objective test is gone. A person is reckless if they consciously take an unjustified risk, and they must actually have realised the risk at the time. What a reasonable person would have realised is not the question. So a boy who throws a lit firework believing it will simply fizzle out is not reckless, if the jury accept that he genuinely believed it.

Section 20 is triable either way, so it can be heard in the magistrates' court or the Crown Court. The maximum is 5 years. Where magistrates deal with a single either way offence summarily, their sentencing power has been 12 months since 18 November 2024. In practice a serious section 20 goes up to the Crown Court anyway.

Section 18. Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously by any means whatsoever wound or cause any grievous bodily harm to any person, with intent to do some grievous bodily harm. The actus reus is the same as section 20. The statute says cause rather than inflict, but the courts have drawn no meaningful distinction between the two. Everything turns on the last few words.

With intent to do some grievous bodily harm. That is a specific intent, and recklessness will never do. The defendant must actually have intended really serious harm. In R v Belfon, from 1976, the defendant used a broken bottle in a fight. The Court of Appeal held the jury must be sure he intended really serious bodily harm. If he intended only some harm, the verdict is section 20, not section 18.

That intent can be direct or oblique. Direct means causing grievous bodily harm was his purpose. Oblique means he did not want it, but knew it was virtually certain to follow from what he did. Both will do.

And section 18 has a second route that candidates forget. Wounding or causing grievous bodily harm with intent to resist or prevent the lawful apprehension of any person. Here the intent is not to injure. It is to escape, and the harm is the means. Prove that, and section 18 is made out without any intent to cause grievous bodily harm at all.

Section 18 is indictable only. Crown Court, always, whatever the facts. The maximum is life imprisonment, and a custodial sentence is close to inevitable on conviction.

So if you keep one thing from this episode, keep this. The only difference between the two offences is the mens rea. The actus reus is identical. Intended or reckless as to some harm, section 20. Intended grievous bodily harm, section 18. Recklessness can never carry section 18.

Transferred malice next. If the defendant intends to harm one person and hits another by mistake, the mens rea transfers from the intended victim to the actual one. In R v Latimer, from 1886, the defendant swung his belt at a man. The belt glanced off and struck a woman standing nearby, cutting her head. His intent transferred, and he was guilty of the offence against her.

But the doctrine has two limits. The mens rea and the actus reus must be of the same type. You cannot transfer an intent to cause grievous bodily harm onto a charge of a different kind. And the harm to the unintended victim must be a direct result of the act against the intended one. Where the chain is too indirect, malice does not transfer.

Causation, briefly, because it decides real cases. But for the defendant's act, would the harm have happened? And the act must be a substantial and operating cause. Poor medical treatment does not break the chain. In R v Cheshire, from 1991, the victim was shot, developed breathing difficulties after surgery, and the doctors failed to treat them properly. The original injury was still the operating cause.

Only treatment so independent and so irresponsible that it makes the original injury insignificant will break the chain. Even switching off a life support machine does not, where the original wound was the cause of death.

And the victim's own choices. In R v Blaue, from 1975, the defendant stabbed a young woman. She was told she needed a blood transfusion and refused it on religious grounds, and she died. The Court of Appeal held that her refusal did not break the chain. You take your victim as you find them. If their beliefs or their frailties make the consequences worse, that is your problem, not theirs.

Intoxication, and here the two offences part company again. Section 18 is a specific intent offence, so voluntary intoxication can defeat it. If the defendant was so drunk that he never formed the intent to cause grievous bodily harm, section 18 fails. Section 20 is a basic intent offence, and voluntary intoxication is no defence to it. So a very drunk defendant may escape section 18 and still be convicted under section 20.

But it is narrow. Intoxication does not automatically drop a section 18 charge down to a section 20. The jury must be satisfied that the drink actually stopped him forming the intent. Being drunk is not enough on its own.

Finally, self-defence answers both offences completely, if the force used was reasonable. And if the force was excessive, so that the defence fails? The defendant may still argue that he lacked the intent for section 18, and should be convicted under section 20 instead.

A word on how SQE1 tests this. You will not be asked to recall case names or section numbers. You get a scenario, five answers, and one instruction: pick the best. The names here are memory pegs. What is tested is whether you can place the harm and pick the right mental element.

If you keep only three. R v Mowatt, because section 20 needs foresight of some harm only, and that single point decides more questions than anything else here. R v Belfon, because section 18 needs an intention to cause really serious harm and nothing less. And R v Blaue, because you take your victim as you find them.

Traps the examiners set. One: a wound is narrower than it sounds. The skin must be broken through, both layers. Internal bleeding, a ruptured vessel, even a broken bone with the skin intact, none of those is a wound. Charge them as grievous bodily harm instead.

Two: maliciously does not mean malice. It means intention or recklessness, and no hostility towards the victim is required. Three: the seriousness of the injury never proves the intent. A catastrophic injury from one punch is still section 20 if all he meant was a bruise.

Four: recklessness is subjective. Ask what this defendant actually foresaw, not what a reasonable person would have. Five: grievous bodily harm is judged against the victim in front of you, not against a healthy adult. That is the whole point of the baby in Bollom.

And six, the one people lose under pressure. Voluntary intoxication can defeat section 18, because it is a specific intent offence. It cannot defeat section 20, because that is basic intent. Get those the wrong way round and you lose the question.

Quick check. During an argument in a pub, a man punched another man once in the face. The victim staggered backwards, struck his head on the corner of a hard table, and collapsed. He has a serious brain injury and needed emergency surgery. The defendant told the police he only meant to give him a bloody nose, and foresaw nothing like that. He is charged under section 20.

Three candidate answers. One: not guilty, because a serious brain injury was not a foreseeable consequence of a single punch. Two: guilty, because it is enough that he intended or was reckless as to some physical harm. Three: guilty of section 18, because an injury that serious lets the court infer an intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Pause here if you want a moment.

The answer is two. He need not have foreseen the actual harm. He meant to cause a bruise or a bloody nose, which is some physical harm, and the brain injury was a direct result of his punch. Both the mens rea and the actus reus of section 20 are satisfied.

Why the others fail. One asks the wrong question. Foreseeability of the actual injury is not the test for section 20. Three inverts the golden rule. Section 18 needs a specific intent to cause really serious harm, and you cannot infer it from the size of the injury. His own account points the other way.

Five things to take away, and the air pistol covers the first. One: a wound is a break in the continuity of the whole skin, both layers. Internal bleeding with the skin intact is not a wound, but it may be grievous bodily harm, and either satisfies the actus reus.

Two: grievous bodily harm means really serious harm, judged against the victim in front of you. Three: section 20 needs intention or subjective recklessness as to some physical harm only, and the harm that results can be far worse.

Four: section 18 needs a specific intent to cause really serious harm, or an intent to resist lawful apprehension. Recklessness will never do. Five: 5 years and either way for section 20, life and Crown Court only for section 18, and voluntary intoxication defeats one and not the other. Next time, Murder.

Practise this topic with exam-style questions at sqe1prep.co.uk. This episode is for education and exam revision only, not legal advice, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by the SRA or Kaplan.