Re. the Chivenor incident of 29 years ago:
As posted by my old chum
Flying Lawyer:
The three defendants and the injured man were all RAF officers attending a party to celebrate the completion of flying training.
Although it was accepted that the defendants had not intended to cause injury, they were court martialled and convicted of inflicting GBH contrary to s. 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.
The Court Martial Appeal Court (as the Court of Appeal Criminal Division is called when dealing with Service cases) held that the judge-advocate should have directed the court martial to consider whether the injured man gave his consent as a willing participant to the activities in question, or whether the appellants may have believed that he did.
Their convictions were quashed.