england-and-wales assault
Why does assault sideline &quot;imminent fear of harm in the future&quot;, and require merely &quot;fear of imminent harm&quot;?
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Criminal-Law-Concentrate-Revision-Study-dp-0198854986/dp/0198854986/ref=dp_ob_title_bk" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Concentrate Criminal Law</em> (2020 7 edn)</a> pp 52-53.</p>
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<p>The most common mistakes students make when explaining or applying the law on technical
assault are:</p>
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<ul>
<li>confusing fear with apprehension (see ‘The main issues’, above);</li>
</ul>
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<ul>
<li>confusing an immediate apprehension with an apprehension of immediate harm, so:</li>
</ul>
<p>– if V says ‘I now expect to be hit tomorrow’, there is no technical assault (even if V is very afraid of the future harm), but</p>
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<p>– if V says ‘I expect now to be hit now, but I am not afraid’, the <em>actus reus</em> of a technical assault is satisfied. Do not forget to consider if D satisfies the mens rea too;</p>
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<p>– if V says ‘I am not sure when I will be hit: it may be tomorrow or it might be now’ that can be an assault according to <em>Constanza</em> [1997] because the victim fears they might be hit in the immediate future.</p>
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<p>Herring, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/criminal-law-9780198811817?cc=ca&amp;lang=en&amp;" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Criminal Law: Text, Cases, and Materials</em> (8 edn, 2018)</a>. p. 75</p>
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<h2>What does ‘imminent’ mean?</h2>
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<p>The victim’s apprehension must be of imminent harm. It is well established that a threat to be
violent in the distant future (e.g. ‘I will beat you up next week’) is not an assault.<sup>13</sup> But what
about a threat to cause violence in the near future? Lord Steyn in Ireland indicated that a fear of
violence ‘within a minute or two’ might be sufficient to constitute an assault.<sup>14</sup> This leaves open
the question of exactly where the line is to be drawn: is fear of violence in ten minutes enough,
an hour, a day? We can know only when we have further guidance from the courts.</p>
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<p>...</p>
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<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kjr71.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kjr71.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
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<p>...</p>
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<p><sup>13</sup> But there are some specific offences that relate to threats to harm in the future, e.g. there is an offence
of threatening to kill in the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, s. 16.
<sup>14</sup> See also <em>Smith v Superintendent of Woking Police Station</em> (1983) 76 Cr App R 234.</p>
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<p>I refer to red underlines in blue box.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Why &quot;not enough to show that as a result of the defendant's actions[,] the victim immediately feared that he or she might be harmed a long in the future&quot;?</p>
</li>
<li><p>&quot;In other words&quot;, why &quot;imminent fear of harm in the future&quot; not assault?
I can't distinguish between &quot;fear of imminent harm&quot; (green) v. &quot;imminent fear of harm in the future&quot; (red).</p>
</li>
</ol>

<p>Assault is defined as &quot;putting someone in fear of imminent harm&quot;.</p>
<p>Imminent means &quot;about to happen&quot;.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>&quot;fear of imminent harm&quot; means the harm is about to happen (very soon)</p>
</li>
<li><p>&quot;fear of harm in the future&quot; means the harm might happen later</p>
</li>
<li><p>&quot;imminent fear of harm in the future&quot; is probably a usage mistake, but might technically happen if you are about to feel the fear.</p>
</li>
</ul>
