The Blip Blop Blog (Team Entity)

Police officers are allowed to make contact with others in the course of their duty and not all physical contact made by a police officer will amount to battery. In Donnelly v Jackman (1970) a police officer tapped the defendant on the shoulder to bring his attention to something and the defendant turned around and assaulted the police officer. The defendant was charged with assaulting a police officer in the course of his duty and the defendant countered by alleging that the police officer’s actions amounted to battery. The court decided that the police officer’s actions did not amount to battery. Some leeway must be given to police officers to enable them to do their job or to carry out their duties effectively. That scope however is quite narrow. 3. Physical force or the application of physical force. In order to be convicted for battery the defendant must have applied some sort of physical force that is unreasonable under the circumstances and does not fall un

Can there be consent to battery? The answer in short is yes. In Collins v Wilcock (1984) a police constable tried to arrest a woman as per s. 1 (3) of the Street Offences Act (1959) which reads as follows: - “A constable may arrest without warrant anyone he finds in a street or public place and suspects, with reasonable cause, to be committing an offence under this section”. The woman tried to walk away, and the police officer tried to stop her by grabbing her hand. The woman struggled to free herself and in doing so scratched the police officer. The woman was charged with assaulting a police officer. It was held that the police officer’s actions amounted to battery. He had no power to arrest the woman and her actions were in self-defense. The court took the opportunity to elaborate on the offence of battery. Battery can be defined as the offence of making physical contact with someone i.e. touching, pulling, elbowing, grabbing etc. without their consent. Howeve

2. The act must be unlawful i.e. the act must be in breach of either common law or statute but if the defendant has reasonable excuse to use force than the act will not be construed as unlawful. A defendant has a valid excuse to use force: - ·       When he or she is trying to defend himself or herself. At common law anyone is allowed to use reasonable force to protect himself or herself. In R v Scarlett (1994) The defendant was a publican who was trying to evict a customer who was drunk. The defendant asked the customer to leave and he refused to do so and the defendant believed that the man was about to strike him so he pinned the man’s arms to his back and forcefully took him outside and left him by the wall of the lobby. The man fell backwards, down a flight of 5 steps, hit his head and died as a result. The defendant was tried and convicted for manslaughter. The defendant appealed. The appeal was allowed and the conviction was quashed. There was no evidence to