R v Brown

R v Brown
Court	House of Lords
Full case name	R v Brown, Laskey, Jaggard, Brown, Carter
Decided	11 March 1993
Citation(s)	[1993] UKHL 19 [1994] 1 AC 212 [1993] 2 WLR 556 [1993] 2 All ER 75 (1993) 97 Cr App R 44 (1993) 157 JP 337 (1993) 157 JPN 233 (1993) 143 NLJ 399
Transcript(s)	[1993] UKHL 19
Case history
Appealed from	Conviction in the Crown Court (defence ruled out by judge; guilty pleas) Conviction upheld by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales
Appealed to	Laskey, Jaggard and Brown v. the United Kingdom in the European Court of Human Rights (as to the section 20 offence applicable to those only)
Case opinions
Conviction upheld
Concurrence	Lord Templeman, Lord Jauncey, Lord Lowry
Dissent	Lord Mustill, Lord Slynn
Keywords
Assault occasioning actual bodily harm malicious wounding consent

R v Brown [1993] UKHL 19, [1994] 1 AC 212^[1] is a House of Lords judgment which re-affirmed the conviction of five men for their involvement in consensual unusually severe sadomasochistic sexual acts over a 10-year period. They were convicted of a count of unlawful and malicious wounding and a count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm (contrary to sections 20 and 47 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861). The key issue facing the Court was whether consent was a valid defence to assault in these circumstances, to which the Court answered in the negative. The acts involved included the nailing of a part of the body to a board, but not so as to necessitate, strictly, medical treatment.

The court found no direct precedent for sadomasochism among the senior courts (those of binding precedent) so applied the reasoning of three indirectly analogous binding cases and others.

The case is colloquially known as the Spanner case, named after Operation Spanner, the investigation which led to it.