It has been suggested by the law commission and others that the sections 18, 20 and 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 should be repealed because they are unjust, ineffective, illogical and severely defective - Explain and comment.

The actual logic of the offences comes seriously under question when trying to interpret the act. ‘Wounding’ is understood to mean piercing of both layers of the skin, the implication of this is that someone can theoretically commit GBH both S.18 and S.20 by pricking someone with a pin. Another point about how the act could be seen as illogical is that before the precedent set in the case of R-v-Ireland and Burstow the courts gave the S.20 offence a narrower actus reus than the more serious S.18 offence.

The offences under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 could be seen as ineffective in the area of domestic violence. Theoretically the offences are no different for domestic violence, but the way the Act is implemented in real life is very negative towards domestic violence. The way Police and society treat domestic violence is one of the main causes of this, police see domestic violence as something that should be remedied within the home and tries not to interfere. Also because of societies approach to domestic violence of that it shows a weak relationship the majority of victims do not report cases of domestic violence. Because of this the act itself is very ineffective towards this particular area of violence and fails to protect the victims effectively.

There have been multiple efforts to reform the Offences against the Person Act of 1861. Firstly, the Government by passing The Harassment Act 1997 The protect victims who suffer from being stalked, although this was deemed as slightly unnecessary as even though the Act of 1861 does not contain provision for victims of stalking the courts had interpreted the act as such that I did account for these victims as R-v-Constanza and R-v-Ireland & Burstow demonstrate. The Law Commission considered the reform of the Offences against the Person Act in 1980 and again in 1990. They subsequently produced a draft Criminal Law Bill, which changed the definitions of the offence so for example S.20 was no longer ‘Unlawfully and maliciously wound or inflict Grievous Bodily Harm upon any other person….’ But ‘recklessly causing serious harm’ which from a jury view is a lot more clear, combined with this they also laid down statutory definitions for the areas of mens rea such as recklessness and intent. So it is expected that in the near future the Offences Against Person Act of 1861 will gain the reform it needs, this has been backed up by the issue of a consultation paper in 1998 on the subject of the Act.