Fear or provocation of violence. Section 4 states, A person is guilty of an offence if he a. uses towards another person threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour or b. distributes or displays to another person any writing sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, with intent to cause that person to believe that immediate unlawful violence will be used against him or another by any person, or to provoke the immediate use of unlawful violence by that person or another, or whereby that person is likely to believe that such violence will be used, or it is likely that such violence will be provoked. It's a bit wordy, isn't it?
Let's concentrate on the important bits. Section 4 is often called threatening behaviour, but that's quite a simplified description of what is actually quite a complex offence. The section has two different forms. The first, in paragraph A, is about the use of words or behaviour. while the second, in paragraph b, concerns the distribution or display of some kind of writing, sign or visible representation.
The words, behaviour, writing or sign must either be threatening or abusive or insulting to fall within the section. What counts as threatening, abusive or insulting will be a matter of fact for the court to determine on the basis of ordinary standards, because there is no definition of these words in the Act. If the behaviour in question is considered to be threatening, abusive or insulting, objectively speaking, then it doesn't matter whether anyone was actually threatened or abused or insulted by it, because Section 4 isn't concerned with the actual effect the bad behaviour has on someone. Section 4a is going to be concerned with that, because 4a is an offence of result. Section 4, on the other hand, is all about intent.
And if you can't remember anything else about Section 4 when you're in the exam room, try at least to remember that. But although we don't need to show that anyone was actually affected by the bad behaviour, we do need to show that the bad behaviour was actually directed at someone. The words or behaviour must be deliberately aimed at a particular person or persons. So if it's a case of someone shouting out rude and threatening words to the world at large, whilst alone in his garden, which just happened to be overheard by a neighbour, who is insulted and threatened and calls the police to complain.
That's not Section 4. And the person who the threatening or insulting behaviour is aimed at, the victim, in other words, needs to be present at the scene. He needs to be able to hear or see the behaviour with his own senses. It's not enough that it is reported to him later.
That won't be Section 4 either. The defendant, who directs his bad behaviour at a particular person, must have the necessary mens rea, of course. Section 6.3 says a person is guilty of an offence under Section 4 only if he intends his words or behaviour, or the writing sign or other visible representation, to be threatening, abusive or insulting, or is aware that they may be threatening, abusive or insulting.
And don't forget that if your awareness is impaired because you are intoxicated, then you will be deemed to have been aware as if you were sober, unless, of course, your intoxication was due to medication or a Mickey Finn. So the defendant must intend or be aware that his actions were threatening, abusive or insulting. But now here comes the really important bit, the bit that makes Section 4 different from Section 4A. there's an additional intent to prove.
You must prove not only that the defendant intended his actions to be threatening, abusive or insulting, but also that he either intended the person against whom the actions were directed to believe that immediate unlawful violence would be used against him or someone else, either by the defendant himself or someone else, or that he intended to provoke. the immediate use of unlawful violence by that person or someone else. And if you can't prove either of those intentions, then you've got to show that the person whom the behaviour was directed at was likely to believe that immediate unlawful violence would be used, or that it was likely that immediate unlawful violence would be provoked. What that's really saying, I think, is that the behaviour must be so bad that, objectively speaking, it would be likely to get the intended result.
But remember, you don't need to show that any of these results was actually achieved. It's all about the intention. The easiest way to remember it is to think that the defendant intends to provoke a response from his victim, as if he were saying to the other person, I'm going to have you.
Remember that word, have. We'll come back to it. But now, let's look at section 4A.