R v Wilson [1997] QB 47

At his wife's request, Wilson branded his initials onto her skin. He was prosecuted for assault occasioning actual bodily harm under section 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. The trial judge treated R v Brown as requiring conviction despite her consent, and the defence did not call evidence after that ruling. Wilson appealed. The Court of Appeal considered the purpose and circumstances of the act, including its comparison with tattooing, and whether Brown made consent irrelevant to every consensual infliction of actual bodily harm.

Was consent irrelevant to the section 47 charge, or could the requested branding be treated as analogous to tattooing within a recognised lawful context?

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and quashed the conviction. It distinguished Brown and regarded the requested branding as comparable to tattooing, rather than the activity considered in that case. On the evidence, the trial judge had been wrong to treat consent as legally irrelevant and require conviction. The court also referred to privacy within marriage, but that language must not be presented as a general immunity for consensual injury between spouses. The result was tied to the character of the conduct before it. Current application must additionally consider section 71 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 where serious harm is inflicted for sexual gratification.

Wilson treated consensual branding on its facts as analogous to tattooing and quashed an actual-bodily-harm conviction. It does not create a general marital or privacy exception to the limits on consent. Section 71 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 now expressly addresses consent to serious harm for sexual gratification.

Wilson is a narrow contrast with Brown, not a rule that consent validates any injury inflicted privately. Identify the recognised activity or justification, the nature of the harm and the purpose of the conduct. Under section 71, serious harm includes actual bodily harm as well as wounding and grievous bodily harm, and the relevant statutory scope and exception must be checked. Marriage does not displace those provisions. The distinction between a case's factual reasoning and broad language about privacy is particularly important here.