Affray

Section 3(1) of the Public Order Act 1986 provides that 'A person is guilty of affray if he uses or threatens unlawful violence towards another and his conduct is such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his personal safety.' The test is objective — it asks what effect the conduct would have on a hypothetical bystander of reasonable firmness, not on the actual victim — and the Act underlines that this bystander does not even need to have been there: 'No person of reasonable firmness need actually be, or be likely to be, present at the scene.' Threats made purely by words do not count, however: 'For the purposes of this section a threat cannot be made by the use of words alone,' so some element of conduct or gesture is required. The mental element, set out in section 6, is that 'A person is guilty of violent disorder or affray only if he intends to use or threaten violence or is aware that his conduct may be violent or threaten violence.'

Affray is triable either way, and the maximum sentence reflects that: 'A person guilty of affray is liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years or a fine or both, or on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both.'