Accused or charged with causing serious harm?

Serious harm is defined under section 21 of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA) and includes:

• Harm that endangers a person’s life
• Harm that results in serious and lasting impairment of physical or mental function
• Harm that causes serious disfigurement

Examples include:

• Stabbing or shooting that causes permanent damage
• Beating that leads to brain injury or organ failure
• Scarring or disfigurement from burns or acid
• Psychological trauma requiring long-term treatment

• Causing harm (s 24) involves physical or mental harm that may not be permanent or life-threatening.
• Causing serious harm (s 23) involves more severe injury, such as life endangerment or lasting impairment.
  Serious harm carries much harsher penalties (up to 25 years).

Recklessness means you were aware of a substantial risk of causing serious harm, but continued your actions anyway. This is still an offence under section 23(3), even if serious harm wasn’t your intention.

Aggravated circumstances (as per section 5AA) include:

• Use of a weapon
• Victim under 12, over 60, or vulnerable
• Victim is a police officer or emergency worker
• Offence committed in breach of a court order (e.g. intervention or bail order)

You may have a defence to a charge if:

• you did not intend to cause harm;
• you act was not voluntary;
• the victim consented,
• you were defending yourself or another person, or
• you were defending your property.

Duress
It is a complete defence to a charge of causing serious harm if we can show that you were acting under duress. That is, you were acting as a result of violence, or some other threat against you. You will have a defence to this charge if we can demonstrate that you were coerced into the act by a third party, effectively rendering you an instrument of someone else’s criminal conduct.

Necessity/Emergency
The common law defence of necessity operates where the circumstances at hand (natural or human threats) require you to break the law in order to avoid even more dire consequences. There is, thus, some overlap with the defence of duress. It will need to be shown that you believed on reasonable grounds that you were placed in a situation of imminent peril. You may have a medical justification, or it may be the case that you were acting in the course of protecting yourself or someone else.
Essentially, the Court will need to weigh up the act you have committed, against the harm you would have experienced had you not acted in that manner. The Court will also need to be convinced that the act was proportionate to the potential harm.

Mental Impairment
The law recognises that, in some cases, people will not be capable of evaluating the nature and quality of their conduct or more categorically, they will not know what they are doing is wrong. If it can be shown that you were suffering from some sort of mental disease, disorder or disturbance, as distinguished from a mere lack of self-control or impulsiveness, then you may have a defence to this charge.

Mental impairments may be either permanent or non-permanent and may include disorders such as:

• Schizophrenia
• Hyperglycaemia
• Psychomotor epilepsy
• Cerebral arteriosclerosis

Yes. The charge focuses on the severity of the injury, not the victim’s survival. If the harm meets the legal definition of ‘serious’, a conviction is possible regardless of whether the victim recovers.

Yes. If you’re charged with causing serious harm, but the jury is not satisfied of the required intent or severity, they may instead convict you of causing harm under section 24 which is a lesser offence with reduced penalties.

Attempted murder requires intent to kill, while causing serious harm requires intent to injure seriously or recklessness.

The maximum penalties differ:

• Attempted murder: life imprisonment
• Causing serious harm (aggravated): up to 25 years

The charges may overlap in extreme cases.

• NSW: “Wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm” carries 25 years under Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) s 33
• VIC: “Causing serious injury intentionally” carries 20 years under Crimes Act 1958 (VIC) s 16

South Australia is similar in penalty range but provides more structured gradation between intentional, reckless, and aggravated categories.