Talk:Grievous bodily harm

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threaten someone over the phone —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.204.207.187 (talk • contribs).

I'm surprised that no one has clarified for this, but threatening someone over the telephone can be (in a limited range of circumstances) Common Law Assault. Bilious 02:11, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it could be an assault art if the one receiving the threat was reasonably in fear, e.g. on a mobile phone you might not know whether the one making the threat was next to you, but it would not be appropriate to put such an element on the GBH page. Not would it be really so appropriate on the tort page you suggest. I have included it on the [common assault]] page in English law. David91 02:36, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Bilious. You have to be put in immediate fear of violence for assault. If it is on the phone then it is unlikely that the fear is immediate, unless (as you say) the person was near you. There is a rather brilliant case called Tuberville v Savage (1669) that may interest you. Wright123 22:42, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merge

The page "bodily" harm is diffuse and probably ought to be turned into a disambiguation page. The page on GBH is very precisely a description of English law and I do not think that diluting that page with a mass of irrelevant information would benefit the readership of Wiki. David91 03:23, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I found this page very useful, and I think it's an issue that is important enough to have its own page on Wikipedia. - TomPhil 15:45, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I, too, came looking for "bodily harm," and was satisfied. I would have been put off, nay frightened away, by the extensive legalese in GBH. Doceddi 15:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with David91, GBH is a specific offence in English and Common Law and quite separate from bodily harm. It's like suggesting the United States should be wholly subsumed into North America merely because they occupy something in common. Bilious 02:11, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed -- it would be tantamount to putting warp and weft on a single page. (Could you imagine!) Ewlyahoocom 07:06, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

• can we remove the proposed merger 'sign' now? Wright123 19:32, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

• Removed

[edit] GBH where permanent injury is inflicted

Should there be a special type of GBH for cases where serious permanent damage is done to the victim, but they don't die? For example, when the victim is left brain damaged/mentally impaired, in a vegetative state/long term coma, or paralysed? In these cases, this type of GBH could fill a gap between current GBH and manslaughter/murder.

This thinking is based on the idea of measuring a persons' health via their "health state", a number between 0 and 100. "0" means they're dead, "100" is perfect health. "1" would mean vegetative, unable to do anything, like move, eat or be aware of their surroundings - effectively a state of "living death". The special GBH would be for cases where victims are reduced from a health state of 80-100 to 1-10, such as a sportsman with a good job is left paralysed from the neck down.

In such cases, the person who attacked them cannot be charged with murder or manslaughter, as the victim isn't dead (although they could be charged with attempted murder - but it can be argued in court that they had no intent to kill - just to hurt the victim a lot ("just" to commit GBH)). The special GBH would (in theory) act as a guide/allow for longer sentences for those who cause these types of injuries when commiting the GBH against their victim.

Any thoughts? Note: Does GBH have a specific maximum sentence limit? This does not appear to be specified in the article --Athcnv 01:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Oops - the sentence limits are listed in the article under the sub-title "The Offences". There is S18 "GBH with intent": life sentence. S20 is "GBH without intent", and has a max. sentence of 5 years. I suppose what I was talking about refers more to S20 than S18.

Note: Does S20 (without intent) mean you want to hit them, do so, and end up causing serious damage; and S18 (with intent) mean you want to hit them in order to cause serious damage, and do so? --Athcnv 01:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)