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13 Aug 2021

You will have heard of the umbrella term ‘violent crimes’, but you may not know what constitutes a violent crime. A criminal solicitor will be able to explain that violent crimes cover a number of different offences ranging from common assault and leading to murder. It also includes robbery and the use of weapons on victims. The national statistics show that in 2020 there were over 1.2 million violent crimes committed in the UK and this shows the growing problem that we have. Here at ABV Solicitors we have an expert team of lawyers who are specially trained on violent crimes and have dealt with high profile cases. Visit ABV Solicitors for expert, professional and friendly advice.

Violent crimes explained

The list of violent crimes is exhaustive, but the main violent crimes that cause concern for a criminal solicitor are grievous bodily harm, robbery and kidnap.

What is grievous bodily harm?

Grievous bodily harm is a concept that you may not be overly familiar with or may not fully understand. Our criminal solicitor will tell you that if you take the word ‘grievous’ and replace it with ‘really serious’ it makes it easier to understand. Grievous bodily harm is a very serious crime and only comes before murder in its level of severity. Examples of grievous bodily harm include broken limbs and even psychiatric injury. Similar to murder there needs to be an element of intent on the offender’s part in order to be found guilty of grievous bodily harm. Where the offender is found to have had the intention to commit grievous bodily harm, the offender’s sentencing will be much tougher and stricter as it carries a life imprisonment sentence. However where the offender lacked intention the maximum sentence they can be given is 5 years imprisonment. This shows the importance that the law places on an individual’s intentions at the time that they are committing the offence.

You may be wondering how this can be proved in court. This is where the jury gets involved and the case is presented to them by both the prosecution and the defence, and based on the evidence they are given, the jury are asked to decide whether the actions of the offender would have been committed by a reasonable person. The jury will need to make a careful and well-thought decision before finding an individual guilty of the offence. This is due to the fact that they have the offender’s livelihood and freedom in their hands. The law also protects offenders in the sense that all members of the jury will need to be in agreement that the offender is guilty before giving a guilty verdict. The test for determining whether the offender is guilty is that the jury needs to satisfy themselves that they are sure that the offender committed the crime and had the intention to do so. If they are unsure or if there is any slight doubt then they cannot give a guilty verdict, but rather they must say that the offender is not guilty.