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R v Ireland and Burstow (1998)

Last modified: Thu Feb 23 16:37:37 2006

This case ([1998] AC 147, House of Lords) demonstrates that silence can be considered the actus reus of an assult, as well as words and actions. This report concerns two similar cases in which the defendants made intimidatory phone calls to women; in both cases when the women answered the telephone they remained silent. In the case of Burstow there were other forms of harrassment as well. Accordingly Ireland was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm (s.47 of the OffencesAgainstThePersonAct1861) and Burstow of maliciously causing grievious bodily harm (s.20 of the same Act). Assault is conventionally defined as behaviour that puts the victim in immediate apprehension of harm. In this case the immediacy is questionable.The case also raised the problem of whether psychiatric effects could constitute bodily harm. In the 1861 Act it did not appear to be the case, but the House of Lords held that the Act should be interpreted in the light of modern scientific theories of psychiatric illness. At least part of the reason for extending the notitions of assault and bodily harm as in this case was to allow telephone harrassment to be properly prosecuted; this public policy issue was alluded to in the judgement.

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