Defences to Assault Charges

Описание: Defences to Assault: Self Defence, Duress, Necessity and Lawful Correction.

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Transcript:
This video is about defences to assault charges. We're going to talk about four common defences to assault charges today. The first and most common defence to an assault charge is called self-defence. Self-defence is were a person acts to defend themselves or another person. It's also where a person acts to prevent an unlawful deprivation of their own or someone else's liberty. So for example in a kidnapping situation was trying to get away or trying to get someone out of that situation. It's also where someone acts to prevent the unlawful destruction or damage to property, so to protect property, if someone takes your belongings and you grab those belongings, or you do what's necessary and reasonable to get those belongings back. It's also where someone acts to prevent what's called a criminal trespass. So for example if someone's breaking into your house you do what's reasonable to get them out of the house. Now for something to be self-defence it must be a reasonable response to the circumstances as they are perceived. So it must be a reasonable response. So can't be an over-the-top response and that response must be as the person who act perceives them at the time. So for example if someone were to come up to me and were to start punching me in a violent manner, aggressive manner, rather than just joking, and I were to punch them back then that may be self-defence. If however they were to come up to me and start punching me and I were to punch them a couple of times and they were to stop and I could get away but I then keep punching them then that's going over the top, that's excessive self defence, that's not self defence. So if you raise self-defence during a hearing or a trial then it's up to the prosecution, that means the police or the DPP to what's called self-defence beyond reasonable doubt so if you raise self-defence say that I acted in self-defence. It's the prosecution's got to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you didn't. If they can't prove that you didn't then you're not guilty your acquitted of the charge. That's the first category; self-defence. The second category is called duress. Now duress is where someone acts due to a threat to their health, a serious threat to their health or a threat of death. So essentially it's where someone is forced to act in a particular way, for example you're someone were to come up to me and hold a gun to my head and say well you better hit that person over there otherwise I'm going to shoot you and if I were to believe that they were going to do that then I could hit the other person and it would be a defence. Now in order for someone to be successful in the defence of duress they have to believe that the threat would have been carried out, they have to also believe that there was no reasonable way out of the situation, and that their conduct was a reasonable response to the situation. The third category of defence to an assault charge is called necessity. Now necessity is an emergency type of situation. It is where a person does something that's a reasonable response to an emergency situation, for example if I were to be with someone and they were to be bleeding very severely and you were carrying them somewhere to get them help and you're pushing people out of the way, which may technically be assault, then you could rely on necessity to get you out of that situation. It's not very common, but it is one of the defences to assault. Now in order for a person to rely on necessity there must be a sudden or extraordinary circumstance, what they did must be one of the only reasonable responses to those circumstances, and it must be an emergency type situation. The fourth and last defence to assault that I want to talk about is called lawful correction. Now lawful correction applies when the situation relates to a parent and their child, or to a teacher and their students, and where the parent or the teacher as the case may be acts in a reasonable manner and a warranted manner in all of the circumstances. So for example if a parent smacks a child, provided that it's not a smack to an area such as the face and it's not done in unwarranted circumstances, where they don't deserve, it and it's not too hard, then a parent can rely on that in order to not be convicted of assault...