33. Strangulation and Injury — Definitions Memorandum (Vic)¶

Scope and currency

The law and case law behind Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) ss 34AB–34AK and s 15

Prepared 18 August 2026. Companion to the Charge List — Non-Fatal Strangulation, Injury and Family Violence Offences (Victoria). Australian English; practitioner register. Every proposition below has been checked against the primary source; the verification log at Part D records what could not be confirmed.

PART A — "CHOKES, STRANGLES OR SUFFOCATES"¶

A1. The Victorian definition is statutory, inclusive, and conduct-based¶

Section 34AB(1) of the Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) provides:

"chokes, strangles or suffocates" includes doing any of the following things —

(a) applying pressure to the front or sides of a person's neck;

(b) obstructing any part of, or interfering with the operation of, a person's respiratory system or accessory systems of respiration;

Four features of that drafting carry the whole topic.

First, the definition is inclusive, not exhaustive. The word is "includes". Conduct falling outside (a)–© may still be choking, strangling or suffocating on the ordinary meaning of those words.

Second, each limb is a standalone criterion. The Explanatory Memorandum to the Crimes Amendment (Non-fatal Strangulation) Bill 2023, on clause 3, states: "Each of these operates as standalone criteria — conduct that satisfies one of these will meet the definition for chokes, strangles or suffocates. Conduct which satisfies more than one criteria will also meet the definition."

Third, the definition is expressed as conduct, not as consequence. Limb (a) is satisfied by the application of pressure to the front or sides of the neck. There is no requirement — as there is in Queensland and, in a diluted form, in New South Wales — to prove that breathing or blood flow was actually or even potentially affected. This makes the Victorian test the broadest of the Australian formulations.

Fourth, the three verbs are a composite, not three separate offences. The Explanatory Memorandum: "Chokes, strangles or suffocates is given a collective definition in new section 34AB(1). This reflects the intention that an accused be charged with 'choking, strangling or suffocating' another person rather than any specific one of those terms. For example, it is not intended that an accused be charged with 'strangulation' as opposed to 'suffocation'." Charge accordingly, and object to a charge that particularises only one verb where the evidence supports the composite.

A2. The guiding principles in s 34AC are directed to the definitional problem¶

Section 34AC requires courts, in interpreting and applying Subdivision (4A), to have regard to four legislative facts. Paragraphs © and (d) do the definitional work:

© even very short or individual instances of non-fatal strangulation can demonstrate the perpetrator's physical dominance and control over the victim and create an atmosphere of fear and compliance; and

(d) non-fatal strangulation will not always leave physical signs or injuries, and it can result in physical signs or injuries that only appear after weeks or months have passed.

These are not sentencing principles alone. They are a statutory direction to construe the Subdivision — including the s 34AB(1) definition — consistently with the fact that brief, injury-free strangulation is within its target. A submission that a ten-second grip leaving no mark is too trivial to be strangulation runs directly into s 34AC© and (d).

A3. The comparative tests — Victoria is the outer limit¶

Test	Source	Threshold
Stopping of the breath	R v Green (No 3) [2019] ACTSC 96 at [46]	Rejected everywhere and legislatively reversed in the ACT
Hinders or restricts breathing — an actual detrimental effect required; hands on the neck alone insufficient	R v HBZ [2020] QCA 73 at [57]–[58]	Actual effect on breathing must be proved
Stopped, hindered or restricted respiration; intention or foresight of probability	R v Li [2022] SADC 159 at [21]	South Australia; follows HBZ but drops "significant"
Pressure on the neck capable of affecting the breath or the flow of blood to or from the head	GS v R; DPP (NSW) v GS [2022] NSWCCA 65; (2022) 107 NSWLR 618, Orders and at [60]–[64]	Capability suffices; no consequence element; blood flow included
Pressure to the neck completely or partially restricting respiration or blood circulation	Criminal Code (Qld) s 315A(1A), inserted 2024	Statutory; actual restriction, but blood circulation now included
Pressure to the front or sides of the neck; obstructing or interfering with the respiratory system; impeding respiration	Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) s 34AB(1)	Inclusive, conduct-based, no consequence element at all — the broadest test
Intentionally strangles, or any other act affecting the ability to breathe amounting to a battery	Serious Crime Act 2015 (UK) s 75A(1); R v Cook [2023] EWCA Crim 452 at [2]–[4]	No injury or harm required
Conduct capable of restricting respiration and/or blood circulation	Queensland Law Reform Commission, Final Report (September 2025), Recommendation 2(b) — proposed only	Would move Queensland to a capability test, with a 14-year aggravated form under Recommendation 3

The practical consequence. Because s 34AB(1) requires no consequence, the interstate authorities cannot be transplanted into Victoria as tests of liability. Their utility is different and still substantial: they supply the medical and forensic vocabulary, they mark out what the Victorian Parliament deliberately went beyond, and they are the natural comparators if the accused argues that limb (a) should be read down to require some effect on respiration. That argument should fail — the text, the collective definition and s 34AC(d) all point the other way — but it will be run, and it needs to be met with the comparative material.

A4. R v HBZ [2020] QCA 73; (2020) 4 QR 171; (2020) 282 A Crim R 419¶

The leading Australian authority on the word "choke". Court of Appeal of Queensland (McMurdo and Mullins JJA, Boddice J); Mullins JA delivered the leading judgment on s 315A of the Criminal Code (Qld).

At [57], the central holding:

"In order to achieve the purpose of the introduction of this offence, 'chokes' must be construed as the act of the perpetrator that hinders or restricts the breathing of the victim and does not require proof that breathing was completely stopped, although the hindering or restriction of the breathing would encompass the stopping of the breathing. The act of choking will not be proved, unless there is some detrimental effect on the breathing of the victim, because otherwise it would not constitute the act of choking. Even if the restriction of the breathing … is of short duration, without any lasting injury and does not result in a complete stoppage of the breath, that will be sufficient…"

At [58], the negative proposition and the evidentiary indicia:

"There is no choking, if the perpetrator merely puts his or her hands to the neck of the victim. In order to amount to choking, there must be some pressure that results at least in the restriction of the victim's breathing."

Her Honour identified the indicia in that case as the complainant's struggle to breathe, her inability to speak, black dots in her vision, pain in her chest and disorientation, and made the important procedural point that "the consequence of the restriction of the complainant's breathing was not a separate element of the offence, but the evidence required to prove the act of choking."

Three further points from HBZ are worth carrying:

Loss of consciousness is not required. At [56], the gravamen of s 315A "is the action … and not the consequence of the act". Section 315A was deliberately enacted without a consequence element, unlike s 315.
The meaning is a question of law for the judge, not an ordinary-meaning question for the jury. At [59], the trial judge's direction that "choked" means "to hinder or stop the breathing of a person" was approved as a direction on the law.
HBZ says nothing about a fault element. The judgment contains no discussion of intention or of ss 23 or 24 of the Code. Do not attribute a mental-element holding to it.

Queensland has since legislated around the gap HBZ left. Section 315A(1A), inserted by the Criminal Justice Legislation (Sexual Violence and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2024 (Qld), deems a person to choke, suffocate or strangle if they apply pressure to the neck that "completely or partially restricts the other person's respiration or blood circulation, or both" — filling the blood-flow gap left by HBZ's breathing-focused test.

A5. GS v R; Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) v GS [2022] NSWCCA 65; (2022) 107 NSWLR 618¶

The New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal (Payne JA, Rothman and Harrison JJ agreeing), on a Crown appeal against a directed acquittal under s 37(1A) of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). The Court made a formal declaration:

"intentionally chokes" within the meaning of s 37(1A) of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) means "intentionally apply pressure to the neck so as to be capable of affecting the breath or the flow of blood to or from the head".

The reasoning matters as much as the result:

[47], [53]–[55] — the critical context is the contrast with ss 37(1) and 37(2), which are consequence offences. Section 37(1A) was inserted into the same section to fill a lacuna, whereas Queensland's s 315A was added as a separate provision after s 315. That difference in legislative architecture justified departing from HBZ.
[49]–[50] — "the absence of a consequence identified in s 37(1A) is a contextual indication that the conduct of 'intentional choking' does not require separate proof of a consequence". The purpose was to prohibit conduct "capable of restricting breathing and/or blood flow into or out of the head".
[51] — R v Green (No 3)'s "stopping of the breath" construction "finds no support in the text, context and purpose", and was "reversed by the legislature immediately afterwards".
[52] — HBZ's further conclusion that hindering of breath must be proved was "closely considered dicta"; Payne JA would have followed it had the Queensland text, context and purpose been relevantly indistinguishable.
[59] — the Crown's concession that "a restriction of blood flow effected by pressure on the neck, even without proof of an effect on breathing, would be sufficient" was "correctly made".
[60]–[63] — Payne JA was "initially attracted" to the view that any pressure on the neck suffices, but rejected it: placing a hand on the back of the neck without sufficient pressure to be capable of affecting breath or blood flow is not choking.
[64] — a practical direction of real forensic value: "it would be prudent for the Crown to call medical evidence in a case involving s 37(1A) so as to address the question of whether pressure applied to a victim's neck was capable of affecting the breath or the flow of blood."

A6. R v Green (No 3) [2019] ACTSC 96 — the discarded test¶

Loukas-Karlsson J, upholding a no-case submission under s 28(2)(a) of the Crimes Act 1900 (ACT), held at [46] that "the relevant element is constituted by the stopping of the breath", reasoning at [47] that the common thread in the dictionary definitions of choke, suffocate and strangle is stopping the breath, "not merely the impeding or restricting of the breath", and that as a penal provision the alternative construction was ambiguous and difficult to administer.

Green is no longer good law anywhere. It was declined in HBZ at [47]–[51], held wrong (by concession and by the Court) in GS at [51], and reversed by the ACT legislature, which inserted statutory definitions of "choke", "strangle" and "suffocate" into s 27(1) of the ACT Act. Its residual value is as the argument the defence will run and as the illustration of why the Victorian Parliament chose a statutory definition.

A7. R v Li [2022] SADC 159 — the only articulated fault element¶

Judge Fuller, on a judge-alone trial of four counts of unlawful choking under s 20A of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA), revisited her own earlier ruling in R v Fraser. At [19]–[20] her Honour considered HBZ and GS. At [21]:

"I now consider that I was wrong to accept the submission of the prosecution in R v Fraser that it is necessary to prove a significant hindrance or restriction of the victim's breath."

Her Honour reformulated the element as: "The accused intentionally engaged in conduct which choked, suffocated or strangled the complainant; that is conduct that stopped or hindered or restricted the complainant's respiration. In the alternative, the accused engaged in the conduct … foreseeing that it was probable that this conduct would stop or hinder or restrict the complainant's respiration."

This is the only Australian judgment I have located that articulates a mental element for a modern non-fatal strangulation offence: intention or foresight of probability. It is directly useful in Victoria, because s 34AD(1)(a) and s 34AE(1)(a) require that A act "intentionally", and the object of that intention is the conduct — the choking, strangling or suffocation — not any consequence.

A8. England and Wales — s 75A Serious Crime Act 2015 and R v Cook [2023] EWCA Crim 452¶

Section 75A, inserted by the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and commenced 7 June 2022, provides that A commits an offence if A (a) intentionally strangles B, or (b) does any other act to B that (i) affects B's ability to breathe and (ii) constitutes a battery of B. Maximum five years on indictment. Consent is a defence under s 75A(2), but is unavailable under s 75A(3) where B suffers serious harm and A intended or was reckless as to serious harm; s 75A(4) places an evidential burden on the defence and the legal burden on the Crown; "serious harm" is defined by s 75A(6) as GBH, wounding, or actual bodily harm.

In R v Cook the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) gave the guideline judgment. At [3]: "There is no requirement to prove any injury or harm as a result of the strangulation so long as it is intentional." At [4]:

"The absence of any reference to injury or harm was deliberate. The act of strangulation inevitably creates a real and justified fear of death. … There is real harm inherent in the act of strangulation."

At [16] the Court set a starting point of 18 months' custody and held that "in view of the inherent conduct required to establish this offence a custodial sentence will be appropriate, save in exceptional circumstances", ordinarily immediate custody. The aggravating list is directly transferable to a Victorian plea: a history of previous violence, especially previous strangulation; the presence of children; an attack in the victim's home; sustained or repeated strangulation; use of a ligature; abuse of power; intoxication; offending on licence or bail; a vulnerable victim; and preventing the victim from reporting or obtaining assistance. At [17] the mitigating list includes "very short-lived strangulation from which the offender voluntarily desisted".

A definitive Sentencing Council guideline for strangulation and suffocation offences came into force on 1 January 2025, consolidating Cook into the Council's stepped format. Cook remains the statement of principle.

Caution: Cook is silent on s 75A(2)–(3). Do not attribute a consent holding to it.

A9. The medical and forensic vocabulary — R v Edwards [2008] SASC 303¶

Layton J's reasons for verdict in a South Australian manslaughter trial contain the most useful judicial taxonomy of neck holds and the physiology of compression available in Australian case law. Her Honour was satisfied of these facts beyond reasonable doubt:

The three holds.

A "bar hold" or "choker hold" — an arm held across the throat from behind, compressing the throat and blocking the airway. The effect is to cut off air going into the lungs, causing oxygen deprivation and, if maintained, asphyxia and death.
A "sleeper hold" or "carotid hold" — the neck held in the crook of the elbow, the bicep applying pressure on one side and the forearm on the other, compressing the jugular veins and carotid arteries and restricting oxygenated blood to the brain, causing rapid unconsciousness.
A "chin lock" or "chin hold" — the chin rather than the neck held in the crook of the elbow. This constricts neither the airway nor cerebral blood flow.

The pressure thresholds (evidence of Dr Gilbert, accepted):

Jugular veins: approximately two kilograms of pressure will block them. Consciousness fades after 20 to 30 seconds; pressure maintained for about three minutes may cause death or serious injury.
Carotid arteries: approximately five kilograms of pressure applied to the sides of the neck. If blocked for 10 to 15 seconds, consciousness fades; if blocked for several minutes, death or catastrophic brain injury results.
Petechial haemorrhaging is produced by obstructing the jugular veins without completely obstructing the carotid arteries — blood dams in the head and neck, and small vessels burst. It would not occur if the carotids were completely blocked.

The forensic point is significant for the Victorian offences. A chin lock does not fall within any limb of s 34AB(1). A carotid hold does — limb (a). And on Dr Gilbert's evidence the pressure required to produce unconsciousness is trivially small, which is the answer to any submission that a brief grip could not have been dangerous.

A10. Further forensic evidence in the Victorian cases¶

DPP v Arslanian [2022] VSC 736 (Incerti J) — a judge-alone manslaughter trial in which the accused had himself been strangled and self-defence was in issue. The evidence of the forensic pathologist Dr Glengarry at [94]–[95] is the most useful passage:

"she agreed that during an incident of strangulation the airways can be blocked off and that can lead to loss of consciousness and loss of blood flow to the brain. She stated that loss of consciousness can occur very rapidly, within 10 seconds and accepted that non-fatal strangulation can cause brain damage and mild brain injury. Dr Glengarry stated that injury from strangulation can be very subtle or absent and agreed that some of the injuries might include redness to the neck area and bleeding or ringing in the ears. She agreed that strangulation can result in a raspy or hoarse voice if there has been damage to the voice box … perhaps days to a week."

At [95] she gave evidence that strangulation homicides are commonly seen in domestic violence settings and require a size differential between the parties.

DPP v Kearney (a pseudonym) [2025] VCC 1043 (Judge Hogan) — the forensic physician Dr Rachel Marr gave evidence that neck compression of some ten seconds could lead to loss of consciousness, and that four to five minutes without oxygen could lead to brain death.

Both passages are directly usable: to establish that the conduct fell within s 34AB(1) where there are no visible marks; to establish intent to injure under s 34AD(1)(b); and, on a plea, to resist the "it was only a few seconds" mitigation.

A11. How Victorian courts have treated strangulation on sentence¶

There is, as yet, no Victorian appellate authority construing s 34AB(1). Judge Pillay recorded as much in DPP v Cullen: "Section 34AD(1) was introduced into the Crimes Act in 2023 with a suite of amendments. However those provisions did not come into operation until 13 October 2024. There is no authority I can find on the assessment of objective gravity of this type of offending."

DPP v Reynolds (a pseudonym) [2022] VSCA 263; (2022) 71 VR 366 at [80] is the governing appellate statement:

"The assault involved two instances of choking to the point of a loss of consciousness, once by the respondent's hands, and the second time with a belt. Choking another person into unconsciousness is a pernicious and dangerous form of violence. The risk which such conduct entails cannot be ignored when assessing its gravity. It is potentially life-threatening. Within the context of domestic or family violence, choking represents a chilling exploitation of physical power or dominance."

Reynolds was a Crown appeal against a total effective sentence of nine months and 42 days plus community correction orders for offending charged as intentionally causing injury and threats to kill; the appeal was allowed and the respondent resentenced to three years three months with a non-parole period of 18 months.

Njovu v The King [2025] VSCA 85 (Taylor JA) extends Reynolds to the case where the complainant did not lose consciousness. The applicant twice grabbed the victim by the throat; on the second occasion she was choked for approximately seven seconds to the point of difficulty breathing. Her Honour applied the Reynolds passage and added: "That AW did not lose consciousness does not lessen the force of that statement." That sentence is the answer to the most common plea submission in a s 34AE case.

DPP v Cullen [2025] VCC 1824 (Judge Pillay, Latrobe Valley, 11 December 2025) is the first Victorian sentence for an offence against s 34AD. Over about an hour the offender repeatedly pushed the victim down when she tried to leave, punched her, put a sheet in her mouth to try to suffocate her about ten times, bit her, spat in her mouth, struck her with a guitar and a whip or strap, and put "something around my neck a couple of times". She lost consciousness for short periods. His Honour set out the Second Reading Speech and s 34AC in full and found the offending serious because:

"(a) your behaviour was repeated. The offence in s 34AD of the Crimes Act includes both choking and suffocation. You engaged in both forms of offending. You put cloth in her mouth to stop her breathing. You used both hands and perhaps a belt or rope around her neck to restrain her; (b) the behaviour was repeated over the course of the hour and particularly when she was crying out for help, as a way to stop that help; © the behaviour was so serious that she lost consciousness on several occasions."

Charge 2 (s 34AD) attracted 36 months as the base sentence; the total effective sentence was four years with a non-parole period of two years seven months, and the s 6AAA declaration was 64 months with a non-parole period of 48 months.

DPP v Froome [2026] VCC 286 (Judge Trapnell, Geelong) is a pre-commencement case in which strangulation was charged as recklessly causing injury. Two victims; in one instance the strangulation lasted about two minutes, causing hospitalisation, facial tingling, ongoing neck pain, difficulty swallowing and an altered voice. Her Honour held that "the absence of a weapon does not lessen the seriousness of using your hands to restrict another person's breathing", and that although the conduct did not result in loss of consciousness, both complainants felt dazed and dizzy. Total effective sentence four years six months, non-parole period three years.

DPP v Kearney (a pseudonym) [2025] VCC 1043 marks the practical dividing line under the old charging practice. The offender pressed his forearm across his wife's neck while she lay with her head hanging off the bed. He was acquitted of conduct endangering life (s 22) and common law assault, and convicted of conduct endangering serious injury (s 23). Her Honour reasoned from the acquittal that the jury "were not satisfied that the act of placing your arm against your victim's neck and choking her was for a sufficient period of time to have placed her in danger of death". An 18-month community correction order was imposed. Her Honour also recorded the Second Reading Speech passage identifying the gap the new offences were designed to fill:

"The unique nature of non-fatal strangulation means it often leaves no visible signs of physical injury, or injuries may only become evident weeks or months after the offending takes place. Historically, this has made prosecuting non-fatal strangulation challenging, with prosecutors resorting to charging offenders with common assault to get a conviction. Common assault only attracts a maximum penalty of three months, which is inadequate for such serious offending."

The consent rules differ between the two offences, and the difference is examinable.

Section 34AD: consent is never a lawful excuse. Section 34AD(2) is unqualified. The Explanatory Memorandum explains the rationale: "non-fatal strangulation which intentionally causes injury is an inherently high-risk activity which cannot be done safely." The only carve-out is s 34AD(3), for a procedure carried out in good faith for medical or body modification purposes — the statutory examples are a neck tattoo and a neck piercing at the complainant's request, and the Explanatory Memorandum extends "body modification" to branding, scarification and sub-dermal implants.

Section 34AE: consent depends on whether the conduct was a sexual activity.

If the conduct was a sexual activity (s 35D, extended by s 34AB(2) so that strangulation occurring during sexual activity is itself sexual activity), the common law defence of consent is excluded and only the statutory defence in s 34AF is available: the conduct was a sexual activity and either B consented or A reasonably believed B consented, with consent bearing the affirmative-consent meaning in ss 34AG–34AH and reasonable belief governed by ss 34AI–34AJ.
If the conduct was not a sexual activity, s 34AE(3) preserves the common law defence of consent, and s 34AE(4) makes ss 34AG–34AJ inapplicable.

The Explanatory Memorandum explains the split: "The common law defence of consent currently requires the accused to believe that the complainant consented, but does not require that belief to be reasonable. This is an inappropriate standard to apply in a sexual context."

Boughey v The Queen [1986] HCA 29; (1986) 161 CLR 10 remains the common law backstop. The High Court considered the application of pressure to the carotid arteries as a technique of sexual arousal and held that this constitutes a battery which cannot be excused by consent, because consent is not a defence to the application of force known to be likely to cause death or bodily harm. The majority observed that "all sober and reasonable people would realize that there is danger in the bilateral application of pressure to a person's neck", particularly where the application is known to produce a light-headed feeling. Where s 34AE(3) leaves the common law defence available, Boughey confines it.

Section 34AK completes the picture: an honest and reasonable but mistaken belief that A was not a family member of B is not a defence to either offence. But note the limit identified in the Explanatory Memorandum: "New section 34AK does not prevent A from disputing whether, at the time of the conduct constituting the offence, B met the definition of family member." The fact remains in issue; only the mistake is excluded.

A13. Running the definitional point — a checklist¶

Date-check. Subdivision (4A) commenced 13 October 2024. Conduct before that date must be charged under ss 18, 22, 23, or common assault.
Identify which limb of s 34AB(1) is engaged and particularise it. Pressure to the front or sides of the neck is limb (a); a hand over the mouth and nose, or cloth in the mouth, is limb (b) or ©; a bar hold is (a) and (b).
Do not concede a consequence element. Resist any attempt to import HBZ's "detrimental effect on breathing" or GS's "capable of affecting breath or blood flow" as a condition of liability in Victoria. Both are answers to differently drafted provisions.
Prove the conduct without injury if necessary. Section 34AC(d) and the medical evidence in Arslanian and Edwards support a finding of strangulation on the complainant's account alone: struggling to breathe, inability to speak or call out, visual disturbance, dizziness, hoarseness, voice change, sore throat or difficulty swallowing in the following days.
Consider medical evidence. Payne JA's advice in GS at [64] is sound practice in Victoria too, particularly where the defence disputes that any pressure was applied.
Family-member status is an element and must be proved on the FVPA s 8 definition. Section 8(3) captures relationships "like a family member" — the Explanatory Memorandum gives long-term housemates as an example.
Watch the charge stack. One act of gripping the throat is routinely charged as s 34AD, s 34AE and s 18. These are alternatives, not cumulative counts. Section 34AE is the count that survives where intent to injure is not made out.

PART B — "INJURY" AND "SERIOUS INJURY"¶

B1. The statutory text — s 15 Crimes Act 1958 (Vic)¶

The current definitions were substituted by the Crimes Amendment (Gross Violence Offences) Act 2013 (Vic) (No 6/2013) s 3 and apply to offences committed on or after 1 July 2013:

"injury" means — (a) physical injury; or (b) harm to mental health — whether temporary or permanent.

"physical injury" includes unconsciousness, disfigurement, substantial pain, infection with a disease and an impairment of bodily function.

"harm to mental health" includes psychological harm but does not include an emotional reaction such as distress, grief, fear or anger unless it results in psychological harm.

"serious injury" means — (a) an injury (including the cumulative effect of more than one injury) that — (i) endangers life; or (ii) is substantial and protracted; or (b) the destruction, other than in the course of a medical procedure, of the foetus of a pregnant woman, whether or not the woman suffers any other harm.

Section 34AB(1) adopts the s 15 meaning of "injury" for the whole of Subdivision (4A), so the s 34AD(1)© consequence element is governed by this jurisprudence.

B2. The 2013 redefinition was a deliberate tightening — Carbis v The King¶

Carbis v The King [2023] VSCA 285 (Macaulay, Osborn and Whelan JJA) is the leading modern statement.

[17] — "The 2013 definition of serious injury reflects a material tightening of the concept of serious injury from that which previously applied."
[19] — "the previous definition was inclusive but … the current definition is exhaustive and comprises three alternatives."
[17]–[18] — the Court quoted the Explanatory Memorandum to the Crimes Amendment (Gross Violence Offences) Bill 2012 at p 3, which states in terms that the combinations of injuries in R v Welsh & Flynn (cuts, a swollen inner lip, bruising of both eyes, bruising to the left forearm and a broken tooth) and R v Ferrari (two black eyes with grazes around the top of the head and face) "would not constitute a 'serious injury' under the new definition"; and the Second Reading Speech (Victoria, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 13 December 2012, 5550, Robert Clark, Attorney-General): "it must be more serious than the combination of two relatively minor injuries, such as limited abrasions or bruising … A broken jaw or a broken leg would constitute a 'serious injury' under the new definition, but two black eyes would not."
[25] — "The general utility of the distinction between intention to cause serious injury and intention to cause really serious injury was substantially reduced in practical terms by the 2013 redefinition … In effect, the redefinition eliminated a range of serious injuries which were not 'really serious' from the ambit of the offence."
[26] — "an intention to inflict life-endangering injuries is an intention to cause really serious injuries."

B3. The old fact-and-degree approach is history, but know it¶

R v Welsh & Flynn (unreported, Victorian Court of Criminal Appeal, Crockett, King and Tadgell JJ, 16 October 1987; AustLII index record [1987] VicSC 451) and R v Ferrari [2002] VSCA 186 established that "serious" was an ordinary English word and its application a question of fact for the jury, subject to the judge's power to withdraw the issue where no tribunal of fact could find the injury serious. Tadgell J's benchmark — a comparison against injuries "commonly regarded as slight, superficial or trifling" — is quoted in Peters v The Queen [No 2] at [47].

That approach has been displaced. Phillips v The Queen; Liszczak v The Queen [2017] VSCA 313 at [52] and footnote 31 records that the pre-1 July 2013 definition was inclusive and the current definition exclusive. Sarjeant v The Queen; Garratt v The Queen [2020] VSCA 45 at [42]: "the legislature was concerned to establish a statutory threshold of 'seriousness', it having previously been a matter for the jury to assess on the basis of the ordinary meaning of the word 'serious'."

The residual value of Welsh & Flynn and Ferrari is that Parliament used their facts as the examples of what the new definition excludes. They are now benchmarks of insufficiency.

B4. The "endangers life" limb — Sarjeant; Garratt¶

Sarjeant v The Queen; Garratt v The Queen [2020] VSCA 45 (Maxwell P, T Forrest and Emerton JJA) is the governing authority. A blow with a broken bottle severed the victim's temporal artery; prompt medical intervention stopped the bleeding. The applicants argued that the limb required the victim's life to have been in actual, "real and practical" danger, so that the same injury would or would not qualify depending on how quickly help arrived.

The Court rejected that at [35]–[36]:

"the phrase 'an injury that endangers life' directs attention to the danger created by the injury at the time it is sustained. Put another way, it is the character of the injury and specifically, its capacity to endanger life, which must be considered … the question of endangerment must necessarily be informed by what is known — and established by evidence, if necessary — about the natural course of events following the sustaining of an injury of that kind."

The question is: "Having regard to the natural course of the relevant injury, did the infliction of the injury create the danger that the victim would lose his or her life?"

[37] — severing an artery is an injury that endangers life.
[38] — "an injury can be a 'serious injury' within the first limb even though the danger to life which the injury creates can be averted — and is, in fact, averted — by medical intervention".
[43] — "The time for assessment of seriousness is the time the injury is sustained. The fact that medical treatment may ameliorate the consequences 'cannot deny or undo the seriousness of the injury'."
[44]–[45] — the contrary construction would make liability turn on "how quickly an ambulance arrived".
[46] — the trial judge was correct to direct the jury that seriousness must be determined at the time the injury was sustained. This is the only appellate approval of a direction on a s 15 limb.

Peters v The Queen [No 2] [2019] VSCA 292; (2019) 60 VR 231 supplied the reasoning Sarjeant adopted at [38]: "an injury can be serious even though it can be (and has been) remedied by medical intervention. Since the question is to be asked as at the time of the injury, the fact that medical treatment is expected to ameliorate its consequences cannot deny or undo the seriousness of the injury. The need for medical intervention may, rather, tend to show that the injury is serious."

McLean v The King [2023] VSCA 6 at [84] applied Sarjeant: "The focus of the relevant limb of the definition is on an injury that, at the time it is inflicted, places the life of the victim at risk. Such an injury does not cease to be a serious injury because some intervention such as medical assistance prevents the risk materialising even where there is little or no ongoing damage." The victim there had been rendered unconscious, had no bleeding on the brain, was discharged the same day and had no significant ongoing effects; the medical evidence of a high risk of death was accepted at [87]. At [86] the Court added that the concept "covers a potentially wide range of injury … It entails an evaluative judgment that is not based on a fixed sliding scale."

This limb is where a serious strangulation case will be won. On the evidence of Dr Gilbert in Edwards and Dr Glengarry in Arslanian, sustained neck compression creates, in its natural course, a danger of death within minutes. That the accused released his grip before that point, or that the complainant recovered, does not answer the limb.

B5. The "substantial and protracted" limb¶

The key contrast is drawn in Sarjeant; Garratt at [35]:

"We begin with the words of the definition and with the contrast in language between the two limbs. As can be seen, the second limb includes an explicit temporal dimension. It will not be possible to say of an injury that it is 'substantial and protracted' until sufficient time has elapsed for the duration of the injury to be described as 'protracted'. By contrast, there is nothing in the language of the first limb to suggest that a 'wait and see' approach to the assessment of the injury is required."

So the second limb is assessed retrospectively; the first is assessed at the moment of infliction. That distinction disposes of most arguments about which limb the Crown should be put to.

Phillips; Liszczak [2017] VSCA 313 at [53] is a rare appellate view of the content of the limb: the Court said it "would have had no hesitation in concluding that the injury to Constable Ashmole was 'serious injury', given that it is 'substantial and protracted'", but was precluded because the prosecution had accepted a plea to a charge alleging simple injury.

Factual benchmarks.

Russo v The King [2024] VSCA 55 — a metal-bar blow producing a comminuted maxillary alveolar ridge fracture, loss of a tooth, a full-thickness lip laceration and permanent scarring with loss of sensation. The Court described the offending as "occasioning substantial and protracted injury". Note that by pleading to recklessly causing serious injury the applicant admitted the injuries were substantial and protracted.
McKinnin v The Queen [2019] VSCA 114 at [14] — a complex tri-fragmentary cheekbone fracture, two fractured ribs with lung injury, a spiral fibula fracture and a complex ankle fracture with joint instability, four days in hospital. There is no doctrinal discussion of the phrase; the case is a benchmark and a worked example of the question trail, not authority.

Below the threshold — DPP v Noori [2019] VSC 172 (Hollingworth J) is the most useful modern list, because the same sentencing judge sorted the injuries into those that met the definition and those that did not. At [108]: "In the case of each of charges 2 to 12 (recklessly causing serious injury), the injury you caused falls within the legal definition of a 'serious injury'. In the case of each of charges 13 to 17 (conduct endangering life), the injury that you caused fell short of that legal definition." The below-threshold group at [25]–[29] comprised: multiple soft-tissue injuries; grazes, pain and bruising with no medical treatment; a broken thumb with soft-tissue injuries and abrasions; a sore back, minor cut and bruising; a soft-tissue knee injury; bruising to the head, leg and shoulder; being winded, in pain and in shock; a broken scaphoid; a fractured left fibula; and abrasions to the knee and elbow.

B6. The cumulative-effect limb — Kumar v The Queen¶

Kumar v The Queen [2020] VSCA 103 (Priest and Beach JJA) is the only substantive appellate treatment. The offender attacked the victim with shards of broken glass causing six separate wounds — two to the left cheek, and wounds to the neck, behind the ear, the chest and the right hand — with three days in hospital, surgical repair, permanent facial scarring treated with steroid injections, initial loss of grip strength, two months off work and counselling for the emotional effects. It was agreed the injuries were not life-threatening ([43]).

[45] — the key holding: "In our view, the evidence of the physical injury and harm to mental health suffered by Mr Idrees well-justified the conclusion that in their cumulative effect they were substantial and protracted." This is direct authority that physical injury and harm to mental health may be aggregated under the cumulative-effect limb.
[49] — the trial judge's direction, reproduced without criticism, put the case two ways: a single injury substantial and protracted "because of the depth of the wound, the damage caused to underlying structures and the psychological injury in having such scarring in a prominent part of the face", and protracted "because it took extra treatment over time to reduce the scarring which still exists"; alternatively, on the cumulative basis, "The law is that an injury may be substantial and protracted because of the combined effect of the immediate physical injuries and prolonged psychological injuries that can amount to serious injury." This is the closest thing to an approved model direction on the limb.
[50] — "The fact that his injuries were not life-threatening is not to the point."

The counterweight is Carbis at [17]–[18]. The cumulative limb is not a device for aggregating trivia. The extrinsic materials are explicit that the new definition requires more than the combination of two relatively minor injuries. The aggregate must itself be substantial and protracted, or life-endangering.

B7. The injury threshold itself — R v Lucas¶

R v Lucas [2021] VSC 81 (Croucher J) is the single most useful authority on the sub-definition of "physical injury", and the only Victorian case applying it. The context was a contested plea on manslaughter in which the "coward's punch" provisions in s 4A required each punch to "by itself cause an injury to the head", with "injury" bearing its s 15 meaning (s 4A(6)).

88–© — bruising and inferred pain. The first head-punch caused small bruises over both heads of the right sternocleidomastoid and areas of bruising over the right angle of the mandible and parotid gland. His Honour said: "while I cannot say whether that bruising amounted to 'an impairment of bodily function', I can — and do — infer that it would have caused 'substantial pain', such that it amounted to 'physical injury', albeit of only a temporary nature, but nevertheless still an 'injury'".
89–(e) — unconsciousness as a freestanding route. His Honour was not satisfied the victim experienced pain from the second punch because he was knocked out immediately, but: "the fact that he was rendered unconscious by the punch means that it caused 'physical injury', and therefore 'injury'".

Two propositions worth memorising. First, substantial pain may be inferred from the mechanism and the visible bruising, without direct evidence of the victim's subjective experience. Second, unconsciousness is a freestanding route to physical injury requiring no pain, no fracture and no lasting sequela — which, on a s 34AD charge, means a complainant who blacked out has suffered an "injury" as a matter of law.

Peters v The Queen [No 2] at [46] identifies the anterior question: "the present case also involves the anterior question whether there is an 'injury'. It will be necessary to consider these issues independently, but the point may be made at the outset that both are ordinary English expressions readily capable of being understood and applied by a jury."

A gap to be candid about. There is no Victorian authority dealing specifically with transient redness or mere soreness as (non-)injury under the current s 15. Note the drafting change, which helps the Crown: the pre-2013 definition required "any substantial impairment of bodily function"; the current definition of "physical injury" drops "substantial" from that item, so that "an impairment of bodily function" is on its face a lower bar. Hoarseness, difficulty swallowing and voice change following strangulation — the effects Dr Glengarry described in Arslanian — are naturally characterised as an impairment of bodily function.

B8. "Harm to mental health"¶

There is no Victorian Court of Appeal decision construing the "harm to mental health" definition or its carve-out. What exists:

Kumar [2020] VSCA 103 at [45], [47], [49] — harm to mental health was aggregated with physical injury; the evidence was from a psychotherapist who had counselled the victim and explained the adverse emotional effects; the approved direction tied the psychological injury to the disfiguring facial scarring.
R v Lucas [2021] VSC 81 at [87] — sets out the carve-out verbatim but does not apply it.
Peters v The Queen [No 2] at [48] — expressly reserved the question: "It is not necessary for present purposes to decide what limits there may be to the use of the word 'injury' to describe psychiatric, psychological or emotional conditions." (Decided under the old definition, which included "hysteria".)
RR v The Queen [2013] VSCA 147 — on "mental harm" under s 21A(8) (stalking), which includes psychological harm and suicidal thoughts, the Court confirmed that it is for the tribunal of fact to determine whether psychological harm has been suffered, and that it is not confined to a medically diagnosed condition. That is an analogous, not a governing, provision — s 21A(8) and s 15 are differently drafted — so cite it as persuasive only.

Practical position. The carve-out is untested. Argue it from text and extrinsic materials: the emotional reaction must "result in psychological harm", which in practice means expert or at least treating-clinician evidence of a recognised condition, as in Kumar, rather than victim-impact assertions of fear or distress. On a strangulation charge, the fear the complainant felt at the moment of the grip is precisely the "emotional reaction … fear" the carve-out excludes, unless it has produced psychological harm.

B9. "Serious injury" is not "grievous bodily harm"¶

Director of Public Prosecutions Reference No 1 of 2019 [2020] VSCA 181 at [112] and footnote 94: "the offence in the present s 17 is not concerned with the infliction of grievous bodily harm, but with causing serious injury. They are not necessarily the same thing … given that 'serious injury' has a statutory definition and 'grievous bodily harm' does not, it cannot be concluded that the two expressions necessarily are coextensive." (The recklessness question went to the High Court: [2021] HCA 26.)

Use this to resist the importation of murder and English GBH learning into ss 16 and 17.

B10. Applying s 15 to the s 34AD injury element¶

Section 34AD(1) requires both that A intended the choking to cause an injury and that it did cause an injury. Both are contested in practice.

The consequence element (s 34AD(1)©) is easily satisfied on the current definitions where there is any of: loss of consciousness, however brief (Lucas 89; physical injury includes unconsciousness); substantial pain, which may be inferred from bruising and the mechanism (Lucas 88); an impairment of bodily function — hoarseness, difficulty swallowing, altered voice, difficulty breathing (Arslanian [94]; the facts in Froome); or petechial haemorrhaging (Edwards). Transient redness alone is the marginal case, and is best put as substantial pain inferred from the mechanism rather than as disfigurement.

The intent element (s 34AD(1)(b)) is where the contest properly lies. The Crown must prove that A intended the choking, strangling or suffocation to cause an injury — not merely that A intended to choke. A brief grip released when the complainant cried out, or when a child intervened, supports an inference of intent to frighten, control or silence rather than to injure. Where that inference is available, s 34AE is the count that fits: it has no injury element and no intent-to-injure element, and s 34AC© forecloses any argument that a brief instance is too minor to charge.

Do not carry the s 15A/15B/16/17 "serious injury" jurisprudence across. Section 34AD requires "injury", not "serious injury". The Carbis tightening, the Sarjeant "endangers life" test and the "substantial and protracted" limb are all directed at the higher threshold and are irrelevant to s 34AD — except where the Crown is considering whether the conduct also supports a charge under ss 16 or 17.

PART C — CURRENCY WATCH AND TRAPS¶

Date	Change	Trap
1 July 2013	s 15 definitions substituted (No 6/2013) — exhaustive definition of serious injury	Pre-1 July 2013 conduct is governed by the old inclusive definition and the Welsh & Flynn fact-and-degree approach
13 October 2024	ss 34AB–34AK inserted (No 37/2023 s 3)	Conduct before this date cannot be charged under Subdivision (4A). Charge ss 18, 22, 23 or common assault
10 December 2025	No 54/2025: s 15A raised to 25 years, s 15B to 20 years. No 52/2025 s 3: s 31(1)(bb) customer-facing workers	Do not apply the new maxima to earlier offending
11 February 2026	No 1/2026 ss 68–70: new s 425 alternative verdicts table (sexual offences)	Different commencement date from the stalking amendments in the same Act
16 March 2026	No 52/2025 ss 4–6: s 76(1) burglary extended to assaults on customer-facing workers; s 77(1A) "vehicle" definitions amended
26 April 2026	No 1/2026 s 67: s 21A substituted — new course-of-conduct definition, continuity of purpose, expanded s 21A(2) list. FVPA s 5(2) expansion; s 81(2)(ab) locating condition	Crimes Act s 641(2) (inserted by No 1/2026 s 69): where an offence is alleged to have been committed between two dates, one before and one on or after the commencement day, the offence is alleged to have been committed before that day — so the old s 21A governs as pleaded. Note the provision operates on the allegation, not on a deemed fact. The prosecution may re-particularise to engage the new provision. The identical formula appears in ss 640A(2), 640B(2) and 642(2). On AustLII, ss 641–643 are appended to the s 644 page

Standing traps.

The charge stack. One act of gripping the throat charged as s 34AD, s 34AE and s 18 is a set of alternatives, not cumulative counts. Identify it and require an election.
Pre-service contravention — and note the drafting asymmetry. For the order offences, FVPA ss 123(1) and 123A(2) are disjunctive: the respondent must have been served with a copy or have had the order explained under s 57(1), 60G(1) or 96(1). For the safety notice offences, ss 37(1) and 37A(2) are conjunctive: the person must have been served and have had the notice explained under s 35. Service alone will not do for a safety notice. Conduct predating the relevant precondition cannot contravene, though it remains admissible as course-of-conduct evidence on a stalking charge.
One utterance, two threat charges. Sections 20 and 21 charged on a single "I will kill you" are true alternatives. Section 20 is the count with real consequences — it is a serious violent offence under SA Schedule 1 clause 3(b)(iii), and s 21 is not.
s 125A double jeopardy. Section 125A(5) bars a subsequent prosecution under ss 37, 37A, 123 or 123A in respect of the same circumstances or the same 28-day period. Charging s 125A alongside individual contraventions of the same conduct is duplicitous.
State and Commonwealth overlap. The same messages routinely support s 21A stalking, s 474.17 (Cth), and FVPA ss 123 and 125A. Address duplication and totality.
No standard sentence, no minimum — and be precise about registration. None of the strangulation, injury (other than ss 15A and 15B and the emergency-worker variants), threat, stalking or FVPA offences carries a standard sentence or a statutory minimum non-parole period. The Victorian standard sentence scheme is not confined to murder and sexual offences: homicide by firearm (s 5B — 13 years), culpable driving causing death (s 318(1A) — 8 years) and trafficking a large commercial quantity (Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 s 71(2) — 16 years) all carry one; s 39 (rape by compelling sexual penetration) does not. On registration: none of these offences is a Class 1 to Class 4 offence under the Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004, so none attracts automatic registration — but do not say "not registrable" without qualification, because SORA s 11(1) permits a discretionary registration order for any offence committed as an adult that is not a Class 1 or Class 2 offence, on the prosecution's application within 45 days (s 11(6)), where the court is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the person poses a risk to sexual safety (s 11(3)). A sexually-motivated s 34AE strangulation is the obvious candidate. There is no "serious violence offender register" in Victoria — the analogous concepts are the serious offender provisions in Sentencing Act Part 2A (Schedule 1 offences only) and the post-sentence scheme under the Serious Offenders Act 2018.

PART D — VERIFICATION LOG¶

Confirmed against the primary source¶

Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) ss 15, 15A, 15B, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 21A, 22, 23, 24, 31, 34AB, 34AC, 34AD, 34AE, 34AF, 34AG, 34AH, 34AI, 34AJ, 34AK, 320, 320A; Family Violence Protection Act 2008 (Vic) ss 8, 37, 37A, 123, 123A, 124, 125A; Summary Offences Act 1966 (Vic) ss 23, 24; Criminal Procedure Act 2009 (Vic) s 28 and Schedule 2; Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) ss 3, 5, 5A, 5B, 10, 10AA, 11A, 113A, 113B, Schedule 1 and Part 2A (ss 6B, 6D, 6E); Explanatory Memorandum to the Crimes Amendment (Non-fatal Strangulation) Bill 2023.

Case law opened and read: R v HBZ [2020] QCA 73; GS v R; DPP (NSW) v GS [2022] NSWCCA 65; R v Green (No 3) [2019] ACTSC 96; R v Li [2022] SADC 159; R v Cook [2023] EWCA Crim 452; R v Edwards [2008] SASC 303; DPP v Arslanian [2022] VSC 736; DPP v Reynolds (a pseudonym) [2022] VSCA 263; Njovu v The King [2025] VSCA 85; DPP v Cullen [2025] VCC 1824; DPP v Kearney (a pseudonym) [2025] VCC 1043; DPP v Froome [2026] VCC 286; Carbis v The King [2023] VSCA 285; Sarjeant v The Queen; Garratt v The Queen [2020] VSCA 45; Kumar v The Queen [2020] VSCA 103; R v Lucas [2021] VSC 81; DPP v Noori [2019] VSC 172; McKinnin v The Queen [2019] VSCA 114; Russo v The King [2024] VSCA 55; Phillips v The Queen; Liszczak v The Queen [2017] VSCA 313; McLean v The King [2023] VSCA 6; DPP Reference No 1 of 2019 [2020] VSCA 181; Peters v The Queen [No 2] [2019] VSCA 292.

Corrections to material previously in circulation¶

Subdivision (4A) section numbering — a live trap. The definitions section is s 34AB; s 34AC is the guiding-principles provision. AustLII's amendment footers throughout this Subdivision are offset by one section (the footer at the bottom of the s 34AB page reads "S. 34AC inserted by No. 37/2023 s. 3", and so on down the Subdivision), so anyone reading the footers rather than the headings will number every provision one out. The section headings are authoritative. The 2026 reform cheat sheet in this project covers ss 34AD–34AI correctly but omits ss 34AB, 34AC and 34AJ entirely — Part A of this memo and Group 2 of the companion charge list fill that gap.
DPP v Reynolds (a pseudonym) is reported at (2022) 71 VR 366, not 71 VR 336 — confirmed from the headnote in Njovu v The King [2025] VSCA 85.
DPP v Gebregiorgis [2023] VSCA 166 is not a strangulation case. It is a case stated on joint commission and murder (Emerton P, Priest and Kaye JJA). The judgment about a seven-second choking that applies the Reynolds "chilling exploitation" passage is Njovu v The King [2025] VSCA 85 (Taylor JA). One source attributing the choking passage to Gebregiorgis is wrong; use Njovu.
DPP v Kearney [2025] VCC 1043 and DPP v Froome [2026] VCC 286 are not sentences under ss 34AD or 34AE. Kearney is a s 23 case; Froome is a s 18 case. Both concern pre-commencement conduct. DPP v Cullen [2025] VCC 1824 is the only Victorian sentence under s 34AD located.
The classification of ss 34AD and 34AE as indictable comes from Crimes Act s 2B, not from the sections themselves. Unlike ss 16 to 24 and s 31, neither s 34AD nor s 34AE says "is guilty of an indictable offence". Section 2B supplies it: "Offences under this Act are, unless the contrary intention appears, deemed to be indictable offences." For offences outside the Crimes Act — including every FVPA offence — the equivalent rule is Sentencing Act s 112, which expressly excludes the Crimes Act 1958 and the Wrongs Act 1958.
The standard sentence scheme is not confined to murder and sexual offences. Homicide by firearm (Crimes Act s 5B — 13 years), culpable driving causing death (s 318(1A) — 8 years) and trafficking a large commercial quantity (Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 s 71(2) — 16 years) each carry a standard sentence. There are 13 standard sentence offences in all, and there is no schedule — s 5A works provision by provision. Section 39 (rape by compelling sexual penetration) is not a standard sentence offence.
"Not registrable" is wrong as an absolute. None of these offences is a Class 1 to Class 4 offence under SORA, so none attracts automatic registration — but SORA s 11(1) permits a discretionary registration order for any adult offence that is not a Class 1 or Class 2 offence, on the prosecution's application within 45 days (s 11(6)), where the court is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of a risk to sexual safety (s 11(3)). (The AustLII code for that Act is sora2004292.)
FVPA drafting asymmetry. Sections 37(1) and 37A(2) are conjunctive (served and explained); ss 123(1) and 123A(2) are disjunctive (served or explained).
Crimes Act s 641(2) deems the allegation, not the fact: the offence "is alleged to have been committed" before the commencement day.
Category 1 and category 2 offences both require that the offender was 18 or more at the time of the offence (Sentencing Act s 3, opening words of each definition).
The Royal Commission into Family Violence did not recommend a standalone strangulation offence. Per the Victorian Parliamentary Library Bill Brief on the 2023 Bill, the report touched on strangulation and recorded that Professor Heather Douglas had suggested the Commission consider recommending a specific offence, but that was not adopted as a recommendation. Attributing the offence to a Royal Commission recommendation is a trap.

Not verified — check before citing¶

R v MKW, R v Milner, R v SDM, R v Cobbo as s 315A authorities — no trace in the Queensland Court of Appeal database on two separate searches. Treat as unverified and probably non-existent.
The High Court special leave disposition in HBZ (reported in the Queensland Law Society's Proctor, November 2020).
R v Hartland [2023] EWCA Crim — citation number unverified.
R v Fraser (District Court of South Australia, Fuller J), referred to in R v Li at [19]–[21] — citation not located.
The Hansard date for the Victorian Second Reading Speech. DPP v Cullen refers to 19 October 2023; DPP v Froome footnotes Legislative Assembly, 9 October 2023, at 3927. Resolve before quoting a date.
UK Sentencing Council definitive guideline (in force 1 January 2025) — culpability and harm categories and ranges not extracted.
Report citations for Sarjeant; Garratt, Carbis, Kumar, McLean, Phillips; Liszczak, DPP Reference No 1 of 2019, R v Lucas and R v Ferrari were not located. Cite medium-neutral only. Peters [No 2] is confirmed at (2019) 60 VR 231.
The indictable/summary classification of FVPA ss 37A, 123A and 125A. The FVPA does not describe them as indictable. Sentencing Act s 113A caps a summary offence at two years however expressed, which would render their five-year maxima nugatory if they were summary; s 125A(4) expressly contemplates a jury. The classification stated in the charge list rests on that reasoning rather than on an express provision — confirm before advising on election or committal.

Research method¶

Drawn from the source material, then independently verified provision by provision and case by case against AustLII. The source material supplied three authorities not otherwise surfaced — R v Edwards, Boughey v The Queen and RR v The Queen — and one misattributed citation, corrected at item 3 above. A separate verification pass was then run over every penalty, jurisdiction, standard sentence, minimum non-parole period and serious-offender marker in the companion charge list, testing each entry against the primary source; corrections 5 to 10 above came out of that pass.