Consent In Criminal Law

In criminal law when a criminal act is alleged to have been committed, the essential requirement for the crime is that the victim was opposed to the crime. One of the available defences when a criminal act is committed is that the victim actually gave consent to the acts . The defence of consent is available to certain case that result in bodily harm which includes assault and battery. For instance, in sports there is a physical contact. Participants are deemed to have consented to the physical contact and possible bodily harm. In order to establish consent in such scenario there are three elements that do exist. One is that a person cannot consent to act of serious bodily injury, second is the harm must be a reasonable foreseeable aspect

The defendant was charged with two offenses of causing grievous bodily harm contrary to s 20 of offenses against the person act and assaut. He denied the charges claiming that the sexual intercourse had been consensual. The judge ruled that it was open to the jury to convict the defendant and that whether or not the complainant had known of the defendant condition any consent between them was irrelevant and provided no defence. The defendant chose not to give evidence and the issue was whether the complainant had consented to sexual intercourse was not left to the jury. The defendant appeal and succeeded and the issue was whether the complainant had consented to the risk of the sexual transmitted infection and to whether they knew the defendant HIV condition. Whether the complainant had in fact consented to the risk of the disease and consequently the defendant has a defence to an offence was an issue of fact which was case specific. Owing to those circumstances the conviction the case was ordered for retrial. Mohammed was sentence to consecutive 3 and 4 years. The appeal preferred raise issue of legal and public about the circumstance which the defendant may be found guilty of criminal offense as a result of infecting another

On a different occasion she agreed that he could pour fuel from a lighter onto her breast and set fire to the fuel. On the first occasion she was at risk and lost consciousness and on the second she suffered burns. Court concluded that brown demonstrated that the woman’s consent to these events did not provide a defence for her partner. That violent consent involving the deliberate and intentional infliction of bodily harm is and remains unlawful regardless of it purpose for both parties. A decision in the court of appeal in new Zealand and the r v cuerrer [1998] 27 CC in this case to infect an unsuspecting person wit a grave disease you know you have or may have by behaviour that you know involves a risk of transmission and that you know could easily modify to reduce or eliminate the risk is to harm another in a way that is both needles and callous criminal liability is justified unless there are countervailing reasons