#crime #defences #law

[ case ] HELD: The Court of Appeal said that in organised sport, criminal prosecution should be reserved for those situations where the conduct was sufficiently grave properly to be categorised as criminal. If what occurred went beyond what a player could reasonably be regarded as having accepted by taking part in the sport, this would indicate that the conduct was not covered by the defence of consent. Whether conduct reached this level depended on all the circumstances, which included the type of sport, the level at which it was played, the nature of the act, the degree of force used, the extent of the risk of injury, and the state of mind of the defendant. In highly competitive sports, conduct outside the rules might be expected to occur in the heat of the moment; the fact that such conduct was penalised and even resulted in a warning or a sending off, did not necessarily mean that the threshold level required for it to be regarded as criminal had been reached. Here, V had sustained a serious leg injury as a result of a late tackle by D in a football match. The jury needed to consider whether the contact had been so obviously late and/or violent that it was not to be regarded as an instinctive reaction, error or misjudgement in the heat of the game.

R v Barnes [2005] WLR 910