Definitions used in the question trails

Aid
“Aid” means to assist, help, or give support to.

Abet
“Abet” means to provide encouragement.

Administer
“Administer” means to cause a substance to be consumed or ingested by someone else. It would include adding a substance to someone else’s food or drink with the intention that they consume the substance.

Assault
“Assault” means:

the act of intentionally applying or attempting to apply force to the body of another person, directly or indirectly; or
threatening by any act or gesture to apply force to the body of another person if the person making the threat is, or causes the other to believe on reasonable grounds that he or she is, able to apply that force.

Attempted or attempts
If a person intends to commit an offence and does, or omits an act for the purpose of achieving his or her object, he or she is guilty of an attempt to commit that offence if the act is immediately or proximately connected to the intended offence.

Benefit
“Benefit” means any of the following:

(a) benefit, privilege, or service – these do not need to be monetary; or

(b) pecuniary advantage – this means an improvement of a person’s financial position; or

(c) property – this includes land and personal property, any right or interest in any land or personal property, money, electricity, any debt, any right to a claim in court, and any other right or interest; or

(d) valuable consideration – means anything involving an exchange of value, whether of a monetary kind or any other. In other words, this means money or money’s worth.

Claim of right [after 19 March 2012]
“Claim of right” means the defendant had a genuine belief that at the time of the act in question, he or she had a lawful right to an item.

Consent
“Consent” means true consent freely given by a person who is in a position to make a rational decision. There is no presumption of law that a person is incapable of consenting to sexual connection because of age. Lack of protest or physical resistance does not, of itself, amount to consent. There are some circumstances where allowing sexual activity does not amount to consent, including:

(a) the application of force to the complainant or the threat or fear of such application of force; or

(b) the complainant’s intellectual or mental development is such that they cannot consent or refuse to consent to the activity; or

(c) the complainant is mistaken about or incapable of comprehending the nature and quality of the act of sexual activity.

Counsel
“Counsel” means to advise or recommend.

Cultivate
“Cultivate” means to take any step that is intended to help a plant to grow. It includes sowing, planting, feeding or caring for the plant. The plant does not have to be grown to maturity.

Damage
A temporary change, even slight, in an object may constitute damage if it affects the value or usefulness of that object. Whether that amounts to damage will depend on the circumstances.

Deception
“Deception” means:

(a) The defendant made a false representation, intending to deceive any other person and:

(i) knew that it was false in a material particular, OR

(ii) was reckless as to whether it was false in a material particular. OR

(b) The defendant omitted to disclose a material particular, intending to deceive any other person, where there was a duty to disclose it. OR

Deceive
“Deceive” means to act dishonestly by causing another person to believe false information to be correct.

Detain
“Detain” means to hinder, retard or restrain, for more than a trifling moment, a person’s freedom to move.

Document
“Document” means anything that contains or conveys information. The document may be in any form. It includes any disc or other data storage device, as well as a computer programme. See also s 217 of the Crimes Act 1961.

Dishonestly
“Dishonestly” means the defendant acted without a genuine belief that anyone entitled to give consent or approval, consented or gave authority to do so. This belief does not need to be reasonable.

Enter (in the context of burglary)
“Enter” means that any part of the defendant’s body, or any part of an object used by the defendant, was inside the building.

Firearm
“Firearm”

(a) means anything from which any shot, bullet, missile, or other projectile can be discharged by force of explosive; and

(b) includes:

(i) anything that has been adapted so that it can be used to discharge a shot, bullet, missile, or other projectile by force of explosive; and

(ii) anything which is not for the time being capable of discharging any shot, bullet, missile, or other projectile but which, by its completion or the replacement of any component part or parts or the correction or repair of any defect or defects, would be a firearm within the meaning of paragraph (a) of this definition or subparagraph (i) of this paragraph; and

(iii) anything (being a firearm within the meaning of paragraph (a) of this definition or subparagraph (i) of this paragraph) which is for the time being dismantled or partially dismantled; and

(iv) any specially dangerous airgun.

Genitalia
“Genitalia” includes a surgically constructed or reconstructed organ analogous to naturally occurring male or female genitalia (whether the person concerned is male, female, or of indeterminate sex).

Genitalia, female
“Female genitalia” means a woman or girl’s vagina and includes the labia, which are the inner and outer lips at the entrance to the vagina.

Grievous bodily harm
“Grievous bodily harm” is really serious harm interfering with health or human function.

Incite
“Incite” means to urge on, instigate or encourage.

Indecent
An act will be indecent if it would be regarded as indecent by right-thinking members of the community.

Injure
“Injure” means to cause actual bodily harm. That is discomfort that is more than minor or momentary. The harm need not be permanent or long-lasting. It may be internal or external.

Interest
“Interest”, in relation to any property, includes ownership or share of ownership, or a right to possession of the property.

Life
“Life” means human life.

Manufacture
“Manufacture” means to create by a process.

Noxious substance
“Noxious substance” means something injurious, hurtful, harmful or unwholesome.

Obtain a benefit
“Obtain a benefit” means the defendant intended to obtain or retain a benefit for themselves or any other person.

Benefit means any of the following:

(a) benefit, privilege, or service – these do not need to be monetary; or

(b) pecuniary advantage – this means an improvement of a person’s financial position; or

(d) valuable consideration. This means anything involving an exchange of value, whether of a monetary kind or any other. In other words, this means money or money’s worth.

Organised criminal group
An organised criminal group is a group of three or more people who have as their shared objective, or one of their shared objectives, obtaining material benefits from the commission of an offence, knowing or believing that the offence would be committed for those purposes.

Ought to have known
“Ought to have known” means a person of the defendant’s intelligence and capacity would have recognised that his or her actions would result in a certain outcome.

Procure
“Procure” means to deliberately cause a person to commit an offence.

Pecuniary advantage
“Pecuniary advantage” means anything that improves the defendant’s financial position.

Penetration
The slightest degree of introduction of the penis into the genitalia [or anus] is sufficient for penetration to have occurred.

Permit
“Permit” means to allow, in the sense of being in a position to control what happened and either encourage what happened or, at the very least, to have not taken steps that were reasonably available to stop what happened.

Psychological abuse
"Psychological abuse" is defined in s 11 of the Family Violence Act 2018.

Poison
“Poison” means a toxic substance, something commonly considered as a poison and something likely to cause inconvenience to the person who ingests it.

Possession
To have possession of an item, a person must:

1. Have been aware of where the item is; and

2. Have been aware of what the item is and, if prohibited, that the item is a prohibited item (if it is a drug, you do not need to know the exact drug, but you need to know that it is a prohibited drug); and

3. Have had control of the item either through personal or shared custody or by having the ability to direct another who had personal custody; and

4. Have intended to exercise personal or shared control over the item.

Property
“Property” includes land and personal property, and any right or interest in any land or personal property, money, electricity, and any debt, and any right to a claim in court, and any other right or interest, including computer digital data files.

Prima facie
“Prima facie” means “on the face of it”.

Reasonable excuse
A reasonable excuse means an excuse which the jury thinks is reasonable in the circumstances.

Reckless
“Reckless” means that the defendant recognised there was a real possibility that the consequence or outcome could occur and that, having regard to that possibility, the defendant’s actions were unreasonable. “Unreasonable” actions are actions that a reasonable and prudent person would not have taken.

Service
“Service” means an activity that has financial or economic value.

Take
“Take” means to move an item or to cause it to be moved. “Take” does not include the situation where ownership, possession, or control over property is obtained by consent, even if by deception.

Take away
“Take away” means to take a person from where he or she wants to be.

Use
“Use” means employing something to achieve a particular end, or obtaining the use of something to achieve a particular end.

Valuable consideration
“Valuable consideration” means anything involving an exchange of value, whether of a monetary kind or any other. In other words, this means money or money’s worth.

Weapon
“Weapon” means anything designed or used or usable as an instrument for inflicting bodily harm.

Wilfully blind
A defendant is considered to have “known” something if he or she was wilfully blind or indifferent to it. A defendant was wilfully blind if he or she deliberately ignored the true situation.

“With or on” (in the context of age-related sexual offences)
“With or on” includes direct contact, or simultaneous and related activity. It includes masturbation by the defendant in front of the complainant.

Accidental or incidental presence of the child is not enough. If the indecencies performed by the child were started by the defendant for his sexual gratification, the indecencies were “with or on” the child. If the defendant was able to control or influence the child and compelled the child’s active or passive participation, the actions were “with or on” the child”.

Wound

To “wound” someone means to cause an injury involving breaking the skin, a cut or a laceration of some kind. This can be evidenced by a flow of blood and is usually external but may be internal.