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.
Read more about this topic: Common Assault
Famous quotes containing the words status of, status and/or offence:
“What is clear is that Christianity directed increased attention to childhood. For the first time in history it seemed important to decide what the moral status of children was. In the midst of this sometimes excessive concern, a new sympathy for children was promoted. Sometimes this meant criticizing adults. . . . So far as parents were put on the defensive in this way, the beginning of the Christian era marks a revolution in the childs status.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“As a work of art it has the same status as a long conversation between two not very bright drunks.”
—Clive James (b. 1939)
“One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of its authority was the only offence never contemplated by government; else, why has it not assigned its definite, its suitable and proportionate, penalty?”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)