gbh with intent

[chelsey79]

My boyfriend has been charged with gbh with intent, this happened while he was on a night out he had a phone call of his younger brother to say a man was threatening his mum at 4 in morning at her house, my partner knew where he lived so went round there, he came out with a hammer and tried to hit my partner with it but my partner got it off him and hit him twice on the head. The other man is pressing charges, do you think the intent part of the charge will be dropped and how long do you think he will get for this

[NORMANTHEDOG]

i believe gbh with intent can get him up to 7 yrs in prison,if he has previous convictions for violence then it makes it more likely he will be put in prison.

[Buenchico]

In 2003 (the most recent year for which I can find statistics), 1332 adults were convicted of this offence. Of those, 1243 (93%) were given immediate custodial sentences.

The lengths of the sentences for those 1243 adults were as follows:
Up to 1 year: 21
1 yr to 18 months: 47
18 months to 2 yrs: 70
2yrs to 3 yrs: 257
3yr to 4 yrs: 309
4yr to 5 yrs: 185
5yrs to 7 yrs: 187
7yr to 10yrs: 76
Over 10 yrs: 15
Life: 76.

If this is a first offence (or their have only been trivial offences in the past), I'd guess at a 3-year sentence.

Chris

[NORMANTHEDOG]

ward minter,i did say i believe

[PinkFizz]

sorry to sound dumb,but did he hit the guy twice on the head with his fist,or actually with the hammer,and what happened to the guy??

[chelsey79]

The man is ok now but spent a couple of days in hospital, he was hit twice with the hammer, after the first blow he again come at my boyfriend so got hit again. This is his first offence.

[blondegirly]

has he actually b een charged or has he just been arrested for this? it sounds like he shou.d speak to his solicitor ( which is free of charge) for advice on this - which should also have been expalined to him at the Police station. it sounds likehe has a defence of self defence but he has to have responded with reasonable force. GBH with intent is s18 of the offences against the person act and it carries a sentence of up to life but it woudl depend on the circumstances. Don't preoccupy yourself with the charge - it sounds like the CPS MAYbe willing to accept a s20 wh ichis GBH which may be put as n alternative on the Indictment if it gets that far. speak to the SOlicitor who is looking after the case as any otehr advice would be useless without more information.

[Gmcd01]

There may be some confusion here as to what 'the intent' means. Under the Offences Against The Person Act 1861 (OAPA) s.18, It means 'with intention to kill', and if proven, can result in a murder conviction. I wouldn't read too much into previous sentencing; the tariff for your b/f is dependant on his individual circumstances- intoxication, self defence, previous good character, previous convictions, the circumstances- so it depends on how capable your lawyer is. I feel that the 'actus reus' (Guilty act) is not in question as you freely admit he did it, so it will rely on the mens rea (Guilty mind). If you may show that there was no intention to kill, that it was done on the spur of the moment, then there is no intention (and the victim has not died!) then the charges would be dropped (hopefully) to s.20 OAPA, which is GBH (with a weapon). As previously pointed out, the max. tariff for this is 5 years, although for s.18 it may be as high as life, because it may be a murder conviciton. Hope this helps.

[mspencer1988]

I'm a law student, and i know that the maximum penalty for GBH section 18with intent is life imprisonment. But the charges depend on the seriousness of injuries made to the victim and the intention that was there at the time and wheather is was necessary. By reading this is doen't seem like using the hammer was necessary for self defence depending on the situation at the time. However if the intention was just 'virtually certain' that there was some risk of harm to the victim then this could be s20 GBH which is maximum of 5 years sentance.

[mrknowsitall0]

sound like a case of reasonable force to me.the man shouldnt of come out of his house with the hammer to threaten your boyfriend ,by doing that he has made it possible for your partner to take reasonable force to stop any injury to his person.

[mrknowsitall0]

you should know because he did not contact the police before going out of his house with a weapon he is actualy taking the law into his own hands,your partner is under extreme pressure because his loved ones have been threatened by this man and has come into the situation werethe threatening man has come for him with a weapon and in the heat of the moment your partner has acted in reasnable force to prevent the man causing him extreme injury.in the heat of the moment your partner is not expected to think about what he is doing or decide how many times he should hit someone to stop them .

[Victim]

I was attacked by a 14-year-old boy and five of his mates in East London at 1am, while walking home from a party with my 6ft+ mate. They were hanging round a bus stop and I just knew what was about to happen. After a shout from Mazlum Sigirtmac , the leader, of "Allahu Akbar [God is Great!]," he took a brick to my head. My eye socket exploded, forcing my left eye so far back in my head I was 3mm from having a glass eye to go with the titanium socket and most of the left side of my face. The frontal left lobe of my brain, described by my private consultant psychiatrist as "the bridge" (Star Trek, not river crossing), where command and control happens. (I wouldn't normally go private, especially as no Bupa/AXA/PPP etc insurance policy covers mental health, I know because my employer offers it free, apart from the 40% tax I pay on something I've never used. It doesn't cover ganglions, broken metatarsals, squint surgery related to the metal face or anything above the neck. However, on the day of Sigirtmac's trial, the one boy they'd bothered to charge (100% clean-up rate for minimal financial outlay, except the other five will probably blow up the Tube soon) I literally (and I work for a national newspaper so I MEAN literally, could not stand up. I crawled to the bathroom. Post Traumatic Stress had been lying in wait and had just kicked in. My boyfriend phoned the GP and he said to try breathing exercises. An emergency appointment would be made with a Tower Hamlets NHS psychiatrist as soon as possible, no longer than nine months!
The next day I was eased into a cab and spent 90 minutes and £350 talking to the shrink in Harley St, after 50mg of diazepam (Valium), IV, to stop me shaking and loosen my up without passing out.
Fortunately there was an adjournment in the trial as the Turkish translator failed to turn up. (His mum didn't speak English. There is no dad).
By the time the new hearing came round, I had been stabilised on seven drugs. My career as a highly-regarded young hack and co-winner of the D&AD Black Pencil (an international design award like an Oscar, except they'd never given it to a paper and rarely give it to anything!) was over. For now I still go but my memory is so bad and I get so tired that there isn't much I can do. I was off for months at a time over a period of 5 years. I have brain damage, memory loss and personality change consistent with the scar through my left eyebrow (quite sexy), PTSD, attention deficit disorder, bi-polar disorder, Asperger', severe depression and anxiety so severe I score 47/42 on the Beck scale. I haven't had an erection since 2006. I piss the bed. There's more but it's embarrassing.
I owe £52,000, all medical. A month's supply of dexamfetamine to keep me awake at work is £283 (450mg of valium, 5mg t.d.s, is only £8 as drugs go out of licence after 20 years. My GP will prescribe some but not others (the dexies (yes, the band are named after it, it's clean speed, basically) and diazepam are among the most addictive drugs known to man. There is much more (two suicide attempts); stuff I can't mention in case colleagues read it, although can I just take this opportunity to ask the books team, especially the editor who has the loudest, poshest voice that she uses to *** me off (I wrote a thing moaning about our lazy racism in assuming Scotland and the other sticky out and up bits are exactly like England when the weather, school terms, jury system (15, + 3 verdicts), education, uni (degree takes 4 years), no law of trespass, no Tory MPs, we like the French (and tons more, all from before devolution). The joke's on her though as I'd headed it "Language worthy of Edward I" and she asked the person next to her, in a voice so loud it was annoying 50m away, who Edward the first was. The Books Editor.
Mazlum got 200 hours community service. Your boyfriend took a hammer to a man's head without knowing what the outcome of his actions might be. He should get a life sentence. I did.