R v Constanza [1997] EWCA Crim 633 (6 March 1997)

The appellant engaged in stalking behaviour towards Miss Wilson, including delivering over 800 letters and making threats. The victim suffered depression and anxiety. The Court of Appeal held that words alone, including written letters, can constitute an assault if they cause the victim to apprehend immediate unlawful violence.

Facts

The appellant, Gaetano Constanza, developed an obsessive interest in his former colleague, Miss Wilson. Between October 1993 and June 1995, he engaged in extensive stalking behaviour including: following her home from work, making numerous silent telephone calls, sending over 800 letters to her home within four months, sitting in his car outside her home in early hours, driving past her home repeatedly, visiting her home uninvited, and daubing threatening words on her door.

On 12 June 1995, Constanza hand-delivered a letter containing veiled threats, including the words:

“Or we play games my way. Especially with those who want to take things into their own hands. So can I do that. For I owe them for personal matters should stay personal”

Miss Wilson testified that upon reading this letter she was extremely scared, believed Constanza had “flipped”, and thought something could happen “at any time”. Medical evidence from Dr Pinto confirmed she was suffering from clinical depression and anxiety caused by Constanza’s actions.

Issues

Primary Issue

Whether the appellant’s conduct, particularly the delivery of threatening letters, could constitute an assault in law, specifically:

• Whether words alone (including written words in a letter) can amount to an assault
• Whether the victim’s fear satisfied the requirement of apprehension of “immediate” violence when the potential perpetrator was not physically present

Judgment

Lord Justice Schiemann delivered the judgment of the Court, dismissing the appeal. The Court adopted the classic definition of assault:

“Assault is committed where a person intentionally or recklessly causes another to apprehend the use of immediate and unlawful personal violence”

Words Alone as Assault

The Court rejected the appellant’s submission that assault required a physical action and could not be committed by words alone. Schiemann LJ stated:

“What is important for the Prosecution to prove is that the fear was there in the Complainant’s mind. How it got there, whether by seeing an action or hearing a threat and whether that threat was conveyed verbally through words spoken either directly in the presence of the Complainant or over the telephone or whether the fear was aroused through something written whether it be a letter or a fax seems to us wholly irrelevant.”

The Court noted that the historical authority for the contrary proposition was dubious, describing the dictum in Meade and Belt and Hawkins’ opinion as “dubious foundations for the general proposition claimed.”

Immediacy Requirement

On the question of whether the victim’s fear was of sufficiently immediate violence, the Court held:

“The essential issue to be decided by this Court is whether it is enough if the Crown have proved a fear of violence at some time not excluding the immediate future. In our judgment it is.”

The Court rejected the submission that a person cannot fear immediate violence unless they can see the potential perpetrator, noting that the appellant lived near Miss Wilson and she genuinely believed something could happen “at any time.”

Implications

This case significantly developed the law of assault in several respects:

• It confirmed that written words, including letters, can constitute an assault if they cause the victim to apprehend immediate unlawful violence
• It clarified that the requirement of “immediacy” does not necessitate the perpetrator being physically present or visible to the victim
• It established that fear of violence “at some time not excluding the immediate future” satisfies the immediacy requirement
• It provided important legal principles applicable to stalking cases before specific stalking legislation was enacted

The decision represents an important modernisation of assault law, recognising that psychological harm caused by threatening communications deserves legal protection regardless of the medium through which the threat is conveyed.

Verdict: Appeal dismissed. The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction for assault occasioning actual bodily harm, confirming that the trial judge was entitled to leave the case to the jury and that the jury was entitled to find the elements of assault were satisfied.

Source: R v Constanza [1997] EWCA Crim 633 (6 March 1997)