When a person is charged with an offence, they are alleged to have done or omitted something meeting criteria of a specific offence.
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The legal term is elements. Elements of an offence are pieces of legislation believed to be met to charge and convict a person.
A good example of this is to look at the criminal offence of assault. In section 265(1)(a) of the Criminal Code, the offence of assault is laid out.
A person is considered to have committed this offence when they intentionally apply force directly or indirectly to another person without consent. There is more to section 265 but we will focus on subsection (1)(a).
For this example, there are a few elements to be met to satisfy this offence. Force has to be applied intentionally to another person, it has to be direct or indirect, and it has to be without consent. A person walking up to another and punching them would typically meet all elements.
If one of the elements is not met, or satisfied, the offence has not been committed. If two people are walking on the street towards each other and both turn a corner bumping into each other, this is not an assault as there was no intention.
In these writings I keep things as straightforward as I can, but I do remind readers that not everything in law enforcement, or that makes its way to court, is straightforward. That is why there are judges. The prosecutors have to prove the elements were met before a judge can rule a conviction.
Arguments are made in court against the elements being met by defence attorneys on behalf on their clients. In the case of assault, a defence of self-defence may be argued by the client’s attorney to try and show the force they used was reasonable and authorized, given the specific
circumstances.
If there is doubt on the elements being met, the sitting judge is likely to acquit the accused.
There are lawful instances where the elements are met on an offence, but there would never be any criminal charges. A question police ask themselves in considering laying charges; is the act criminal?
In a hockey game, actions that appear to meet the elements of assault can occur every minute. But it is not criminal. A bodycheck would appear as an assault, but a hockey player is consenting to force being applied to them by the nature of the game. The other team is certainly intentional in applying a bodycheck directly to an opposing player, but the ‘without consent’ element is not met in this scenario.
Boxing and MMA contests are also activities where consent has been provided.
An assault can also be considered to have occurred if a person attempts or threatens to do those things deemed elements of a particular offence even though they didn’t actually touch another person. But this gets complicated.
– Staff Sgt. Jerry Nutbown, is the NCO in charge of the Lloydminster RCMP detachment’s General Investigation Section. Stay tuned for future articles from the Lloydminster RCMP.
This column was originally published in the Mar. 27, 2025, edition of the Meridian Source.
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