Assault and Violent Offence Lawyers, Brisbane
The difference between a charge heard in the Magistrates Court and one heard by a jury in the District Court can come down to how an injury is characterised. That is worth arguing about early.
Assault offences in Queensland are created by the Criminal Code and graded by the harm caused and the circumstances. Common assault sits at the lower end and is usually dealt with in the Magistrates Court; grievous bodily harm and wounding are indictable and are heard in the District Court. Self-defence is a genuine answer to an assault charge, not a mitigating factor, and it is the prosecution that must exclude it.
How Queensland grades assault charges
An assault is the application of force to another person without their consent, or a threat to do so where the person threatening has an apparent present ability to carry it out. That definition covers a great deal of ground, so the Criminal Code grades the offences by the harm caused and by the circumstances in which the force was applied.
At the lower end sits common assault. Where the assault causes bodily harm — an injury that interferes with health or comfort — the charge becomes assault occasioning bodily harm, and it is more serious again if the offender was armed or acting with another person. Wounding and grievous bodily harm are more serious still, and grievous bodily harm does not require any intention to cause that level of injury: causing it is enough.
Separate offences exist for assaults on particular people, including police officers and public officers performing their duties, and these carry their own aggravating circumstances. There are also specific offences directed at strangulation in a domestic setting, which Queensland treats very seriously and which is not dealt with as an ordinary assault.
Which court, and why it matters
Some assault charges can be dealt with summarily in the Magistrates Court; the more serious ones are indictable and proceed to the District Court, where the trial is before a judge and jury. Which path a charge takes affects the likely penalty, the cost, the time it takes, and the procedural steps available along the way.
It follows that the characterisation of the injury is one of the most consequential questions in the case. Whether what happened amounted to bodily harm, or to grievous bodily harm, is a matter capable of being contested on medical evidence — and it determines the court, not merely the sentence.
Self-defence is an answer, not an excuse
Queensland law recognises that a person may lawfully use force to defend themselves against an unprovoked assault, and may use force proportionate to the threat they faced. This is frequently misunderstood as a plea for sympathy at sentence. It is not. Where self-defence is properly raised on the evidence, the prosecution must exclude it beyond reasonable doubt, and if it cannot, the defendant is entitled to be acquitted.
Related provisions deal with provocation, defence of another person, and the defence of property. Which of them is available depends closely on the facts: who moved first, what was said, whether retreat was possible, and what the accused reasonably believed at the time.
This is why the first version of events matters so much. An account given to police at the scene, before anyone has considered whether self-defence is available, can foreclose the argument later. You are entitled to decline to be interviewed, and in most cases that is the right course until you have advice.
What the evidence usually turns out to be
Where the charge arises from a domestic relationship
If the alleged assault occurred in a domestic relationship, two separate processes usually run at once: the criminal charge, and a protection order application in the Magistrates Court. They are decided on different tests, and they interact — what is said in one can be used in the other.
A criminal conviction can also be recorded as a domestic violence offence, which has consequences beyond the sentence itself. We deal with the protection order side of this in more detail on our domestic and family violence page, and it is important that both are handled together rather than separately.