Common Assault - Status of Offence

Status of Offence

This is the least serious assault. It is not at all uncommon for more serious assault charges to be reduced to common assault in "plea-bargaining" by prosecutors to avoid the additional expense of a Crown Court trial should the defendant elect for same. In real terms, the degree of fear or the level of injury required for a conviction can be unproven. No injury is required to prove battery.

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