Aggravated Assault

OFFENCE

All assault related charges start with the requirement that the Crown can prove the intentional and non-consensual application of force. The different types of assault charges depend on the manner in which the assault was committed or the extent of injury caused by the assault

Aggravated assault is an assault where the accused person wounds, maims, disfigures or endangers the life of the person who was assaulted. Wounding requires a breaking of the skin, but can include the perforation of an eardrum or the puncturing of an eyeball. Broken bones would also meet the definition

In order for the Crown to prove aggravated assault, they must prove that there was an objective foresight of the risk of the harm. In other words, the accused person need not to have intended the injury as long as they intended the assault and the injury in question was reasonably foreseeable from an objective point of view.