Appeal - Criminal law and procedure - Application for
leave to appeal - Whether reasonable prospects of success - Turns on own facts
Quick Take
1Where the prosecution evidence, received without objection, describes an assault as a continuous array of blows, kicks and pushes, the assault may be treated as the whole attack, and the prosecution need only prove that this attack caused the particularised bodily harm, not that any single act (such as a kick) caused it.
2Submissions made by defence counsel after all the evidence has been led cannot retrospectively particularise or confine the prosecution case, such as by requiring proof that a specific act caused the bodily harm.
3On the facts, a magistrate's erroneous finding that a kick caused the injury did not produce a substantial miscarriage of justice, because the bodily harm was in any event caused by the assault as a whole and the post-evidence discussion did not alter the evidence led.
