We use necessary cookies to make our site work. We'd also like to set optional cookies to help us measure web traffic and report on campaigns. Cookie settings. In their judgment, they held that one cannot consent to harm that constitutes actual bodily harm ABH or above unless it falls into a set of exhaustive exceptions, such as tattooing or boxing. Sadomasochism, they ruled, is no such exception. With that in mind, it seems plausible to accept the argument that this defence cannot exist.
However, subsequent cases heard in the years since Brown suggest that this legal precedent is not quite as steadfast as originally thought. Rather, it is a misnomer for a very real phenomena where acts of violence are presented as a spontaneous but unfortunate act โ a crime of passion, even โ despite further inspection revealing a wider pattern of abuse.
Half of UK women were killed by former or current partners, with at least a third being subjected to abuse prior to their deaths. In at least 20 cases, the accused had prior convictions for serious violence against women, including murder, rape, attempted rape, kidnapping, and assault, and 3 would go on to kill again. While two cases relied on claims of rough sex in , 20 such claims were made in , indicating a pattern of growth despite the case.
In Williamson , the act of smothering the victim with a pillow was similarly presented as a one-off crime of passion. The defendant went on to continue abusing more women, including his next partner, before murdering his mother after serving only three years for manslaughter.
It took three years for the lower courts to depart from Brown. Unlike Brown , where no permanent injuries were sustained in their activities, the harm inflicted on the victim in Wilson caught the attention of a medical professional who felt obliged to involve the police upon seeing the brand, producing written evidence for the prosecution.
