The Prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant had assaulted the Complainant and that the assault was unlawful. The Code sets out that common assault occurs when one person assaults another and the assault was unlawful. Moreover, the Code defines assault, therein notably setting out two separate types of assault. The first was previously Battery under English common law and may adequately be described as striking, touching, moving of, or application of force of any kind to the person of another; either directly or indirectly; and without the other person's consent. Whereas the second limb is any bodily act or gesture that was utilised in an attempt to apply force of any kind or to threaten to apply force of any …show more content…
Words alone are insufficient to amount to the requisite conduct comprising an attempt or a threat to apply force. However, the bodily act or gesture must be viewed taking into account accompanying words, which may add a further dimension rendering the act or gesture threatening. In this case not only was mien of the Defendant hostile evident in his language, but also that he was following her and had cracked the whip close to the Complainant which would create a reasonable apprehension or expectation of assault. The Code definition for Assault adopts the common-law therefrom on the part of the assailant, an intention either to use force or to create an apprehension of the use of force on the part of the person being assaulted. From above it indisputable that the Defendant had in his mind that his actions and words combined would create an apprehension of the application of …show more content…
An attempted application of force, the apparent present ability to effect the purpose is to be evident at the time of the attempt; but if the case is one of the threatened application of force, then it must be evident from the facts known at the time the threat is made that at the time when the threat is to be carried out the person making the threat will then have an apparent ability to carry out the threat. The Defendant cracked the whip so close that she felt the wind rush past her face and that it passed no more than two centimetres from her face, showed that the Defendant’s whip was easily within range of the Complainant and therefore intimating creating the reasonable apprehension by the Complainant that the Defendant either had the present ability to assault the