Correct on the date of publication - 19 January 2026
Question:
In what circumstances might a player in a game of sport be criminally liable for injuries caused to an opposing player?
Answer:
Sporting playing areas are within the realms of the law: the rule of law does not end where the field of play begins, with the referee enjoying autonomy.
The Crown Prosecution Service has offered guidelines on how the police should view circumstances involving different levels of assault or wounding.
However, the case of R v Barnes (2004) provides the judicial bench mark as to the principal issue when a player inflicts injury on another. It was the trial judge's summing up which resulted in the case going to the Court of Appeal and the allowing of Mark Barnes's appeal against conviction for an offence of inflicting grievous bodily harm on an opposition player, (contrary to section 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.)
During an amateur league football match, Mark Barnes tackled an opposition player resulting in the opposing player sustaining a serious leg injury. The prosecution case was that injury was sustained by reason of a late, unnecessary, reckless and high crushing tackle. The accused argued that though the tackle might have been a hard challenge, it was a fair, sliding tackle in the flow of play and the injury sustained was accidentally caused.
The judgement of the Court of Appeal records that the ground of appeal went to the heart of the question when it was appropriate to launch a criminal prosecution following injury being caused by one participant on another participant in a sporting event. The Lord Chief Justice pointed out that there was a dearth of judicial guidance as to the approaches courts should take, but a few cases in recent times identified the need for the Court of Appeal to issue guidance.
In deciding what the approach of the courts should be, the Lord Chief Justice stated that the starting point was that most organisations had their own disciplinary procedures for dealing with particular rules and standards of behaviour. Because of this, he said, in the majority of cases there was no necessity for criminal proceedings and the institution of such action was undesirable.
The Lord Chief Justice then made reference to the fact that aggrieved persons could pursue civil remedies when injury was sustained and pointed out that sometimes criminal and civil remedies might overlap.
As a fundamental principle, the Lord Chief Justice stated that criminal prosecutions in respect of injuries in sport should be restricted to those cases where the offending conduct was sufficiently grave to be described as "criminal". When the launching of proceedings was justified, the individual might be charged with offences ranging from assault to manslaughter and even murder.
The Lord Chief Justice made reference to the issue of the victim's consent to the risk of injury, when participating in sporting activities. In this regard he pointed out that whilst such consent might be a defence to an assault; where bodily injury was caused, the issue of the consent of the victim was of no bearing since, in law, a person cannot consent to being caused bodily injury. As a matter of public policy, there were exceptions to this general rule, His Lordship asserted, and in respect of contact sports the defence was limited to those situations where there had been implicit consent to what had occurred.
The Lord Chief Justice went on to say that if what had taken place went beyond what a player could reasonably be regarded as having accepted by participating in the sport, such conduct would not be covered by the defence of consent. What was implicitly accepted in one sport would not necessarily be protected by the defence in another sport.
Addressing the most fundamental issues, the Lord Chief Justice stated that in highly competitive sports, behaviour outside the rules could be anticipated in the heat of the moment and, notwithstanding that such conduct might warrant a warning or a sending off; it still might not reach the threshold level required for it to be classified as being criminal.
The threshold level for determining whether conduct should be categorised as criminal was not determined by the views of the player but was an objective test, the Lord Chief Justice ruled.
The Court of Appeal held that in deciding whether an individual's conduct was beyond the threshold the relevant factors were -
- the type of sport;
- the level at which it was being played;
- the nature of the act;
- the degree of force used;
- the extent of the risk of injury; and
- the defendant's state of mind.
All these circumstances would determine whether the threshold level for the conduct to be regarded as criminal, the Court held.
The judgement in the case recognises that some cases would fall in a grey area and in such circumstances a jury would need to ask themselves, amongst other matters, whether the conduct was so late or violent that it could not be regarded as an instinctive reaction, error or misjudgement in the heat of the game.
So far as allegations of contraventions of section 18 (wounding or causing grievous bodily harm with intent) and section 20 (inflicting grievous bodily harm) of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, the Court of Appeal held that where the offending act was alleged to fall within the implicit consent derived from the victim's participation in the sport, the accused could be said to be not guilty of the offence because his conduct was not unlawful.
Whilst Mark Barnes' appeal was allowed, the principal issues raised by the judgement in the case are the guidelines offered by the Lord Chief Justice.
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