Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Actual bodily harm definition

What does Actual bodily harm mean? In criminal practice, actual bodily harm (ABH) describes injuries that interfere with a victim’s health or comfort and are more than transient or trifling; they need not be permanent. In England & Wales and Northern Ireland, ABH is the harm element in the offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm under section 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. The term is defined through case law (including R v Miller and R v Chan‑Fook): it covers any hurt beyond the merely transient or trifling and can include medically recognised psychiatric injury (but not emotions such as fear or distress...

Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm (s 47 OAPA 1861): Elements, Defences, CPS Charging Standard, Sentencing Guidelines and Racially Aggravated Form (England and Wales)

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Practice notes

The offence of Actual bodily harm

Assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH) can be tried in either the magistrates' court or the Crown Court. In most instances, ABH is tried in the magistrates' court unless that court considers its sentencing powers inadequate (see: Sentencing for ABH below).

Elements of the offence

Under section 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (OATPA 1861), the prosecution must prove:

an assault or a battery; and
that the assault or battery caused the victim actual bodily harm.

Assault

The prosecution must establish:

conduct,
done intentionally or recklessly,
which causes the victim to apprehend immediate unlawful violence.

It is unnecessary for any force to be used; the required element is the fear or anticipation of violence.

Battery

The prosecution must establish:

the infliction of unlawful force upon another person; and
that such force was applied intentionally or recklessly.

The courts have held that the force need not be applied directly. For instance, in DPP v K (a minor) the Divisional Court ruled that a schoolboy who poured acid into a hand dryer, causing injury to another pupil...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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