What counts as assault in NSW?
Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), Part 3: assault offences range from common assault (s 61, 2 years maximum) through assault occasioning actual bodily harm (s 59), wounding and grievous bodily harm (ss 33, 35), to the homicide offences (ss 18–24). Affray and violent disorder cover group violence.
An assault is any act that intentionally or recklessly applies force to another person — or puts them in fear of immediate unlawful violence. No injury is required, and no contact is required. A push is an assault. Spitting is an assault. A raised fist, in the right circumstances, is an assault.
What changes as the facts get more serious is not whether an assault occurred but which offence is charged. Injury, weapons, intent and company each move the charge up the ladder — from a summary matter dealt with in the Local Court to an indictable assault prosecuted in the District or Supreme Court, with maximum penalties measured in decades rather than months. Identifying the right rung — and whether the prosecution has charged a rung too high — is the first job in every assault case.
One routing note: where the alleged assault occurred within a domestic relationship, it is charged and recorded as a domestic violence offence, and different considerations apply. Those matters are dealt with on our Domestic & Family Violence pages.
Assault & violent offence charges we defend
Common Assault
The base offence — s 61, no injury required, Local Court. For first offenders, an outcome without conviction is often the realistic objective.
Assault Occasioning ABH
Assault causing actual bodily harm — injury that is more than transient. The most commonly negotiated charge on the ladder.
GBH & Wounding
The serious-injury offences: reckless wounding, reckless GBH and wound or GBH with intent — the latter carrying a 25-year maximum.
Affray
Using or threatening violence so that a bystander of reasonable firmness would fear for their safety. One person can commit it; it carries 10 years.
Violent Disorder
The group-violence offence beneath affray — three or more people, summary only, and sometimes the negotiated landing point for an affray charge.
Robbery
Stealing with violence or threats — from basic robbery through armed and aggravated forms, each tier carrying sharply higher maximums.
Kidnapping & Extortion
Detaining a person for advantage, and demands with menaces. Definition-heavy charges where what the prosecution must actually prove is often misunderstood.
Murder & Manslaughter
The homicide offences at the top of the ladder. Matters that demand senior, methodical defence work from the first hours.
The severity ladder — where your charge sits
Reading the ladder from the bottom up tells you most of what the first conversation with a lawyer will cover.
Common assault is the floor: any unlawful application of force or threat of immediate violence, no injury required. It is a summary offence with a 2-year maximum, dealt with in the Local Court — and for first offenders, the charge where non-conviction outcomes are most realistically available.
Assault occasioning actual bodily harm is common assault plus injury — harm that is more than transient or trifling. The maximum rises to 5 years, and the boundary between ABH and common assault is the most commonly negotiated line in NSW assault practice.
Wounding and grievous bodily harm are the serious-injury offences: wounding means both layers of the skin broken; GBH means really serious harm. Recklessness or intent determines the charge, and the with-intent offence under s 33 carries 25 years. These are strictly indictable matters where custody is a live question.
Affray and violent disorder sit alongside the ladder rather than on it — public-order offences for fights and group violence, judged against whether a hypothetical bystander would have feared for their safety. No one needs to have been injured at all.
Murder and manslaughter are the top of the ladder. Where a death has occurred, or police are investigating one, nothing should be said to anyone before advice is taken.
"It was only a push" — why minor contact is still assault
The most common misconception in this area is that assault requires injury — that a shove, a grabbed arm or spit cannot found a criminal charge. It can, and it routinely does. Common assault exists precisely to cover unlawful force and threats that cause no harm. People walk into police interviews believing they have nothing to answer for because "no one was hurt", and talk themselves into a charge.
The flip side matters just as much: because injury is what escalates the charge, the medical evidence — what the injuries actually were, how they are described, who describes them — is often the most contested ground in an assault prosecution. A charge laid in the heat of the night is not always the charge the evidence supports.
How Lenz Legal approaches assault charges
Assault matters reward the same disciplined sequence at every level: obtain the brief, the footage and the medical evidence early; test identification and self-defence properly; assess whether the charge sits on the right rung; and then make a clear-eyed call between negotiation, a defended hearing and a well-prepared plea. Self-defence, once raised, must be disproved by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt — it is the most important doctrine in this area and the most poorly understood.
Every matter turns on its own facts. What does not change is the value of getting advice before the police interview — what is said in that room shapes everything that follows.
Assault charges — your questions answered
Is spitting on someone assault?
Yes. Common assault requires no injury — and no contact at all. Spitting is an application of force and is routinely charged as common assault, as is a raised fist or a credible threat of immediate violence. Injury determines which rung the charge sits on, not whether an assault occurred.
What is the difference between common assault and ABH?
Injury. Common assault requires none; assault occasioning actual bodily harm requires harm that is more than transient or trifling — bruising, swelling, lasting marks. The maximum rises from 2 to 5 years, and whether an ABH charge can properly be negotiated down to common assault is often the central question in the case.
Will I go to jail for a first assault offence?
At the lower rungs — common assault and many ABH matters — imprisonment is not the usual outcome for a first offender. Fines, Community Correction Orders and non-conviction orders under section 10 are all realistically available. Higher up the ladder, custody becomes a live question. Every matter turns on its own facts.
What is an aggravated assault?
NSW has no single offence by that name. Aggravating circumstances change the charge itself: injury creates ABH, the victim's occupation creates specific offences, company and weapons push matters into higher-maximum versions, and intent moves a charge into the wounding and GBH offences. The first task is always identifying exactly which section you are charged under.