Consent in the law.

The first 200 words of this essay...

CONSENT

In A-G's Reference (No 6 of 1980) [1981], the Court of Appeal held that, subject to exceptions mentioned below, a person's consent is irrelevant and cannot prevent criminal liability for an offence if actual bodily harm was intended and/or caused. This strict rule was based on the view that it is not in the public interest that people should try to cause, or should cause, each other actual bodily harm for no good reason. In some cases there may be a good reason, and the Court of Appeal was at pains to emphasise that the above rule did not affect the accepted legality of certain situations, referred to below, in which the consent of the victim is legally relevant and renders the conduct in question lawful.

One cannot consent to the intentional causing of actual bodily harm, except in certain recognised cases. R v Brown and Others [1993] & R v Wilson [1996]. As a general rule where persons quarrel and agree to settle their differences with a fight, the injuries can amount to an assault and the unlawfulness cannot be denied by pleading that the other consented to the fight. A-G's Reference (No 6 of 1980)