46 Trespass to the person

cheering her up, but because he was attracted to her. It was held that the constable
committed a battery in hugging the claimant so while the claimant consented to being
hugged by the constable, her consent must have been rendered invalid by her being misled
as to the reasons why the constable was hugging her.
31
B. Vitiation of consent
An apparently valid consent will be vitiated, and rendered invalid, if it was procured
through illegitimate pressure or through the illegitimate exercise of some inuence over
the person giving their consent. Suppose, for example, that Surgeon performed an abortion
on Girl but Girl only agreed to the abortion because her father threatened to kill her if she
did not have it. In this case, it cannot be said that Girl validly consented to Surgeons
performing the abortion on her. This is not to say that Girl could sue Surgeon for battery
in this case. But if Surgeon is to establish a lawful justication for what he did, he cannot
do so by claiming that Girl consented to the abortion. The topic is further explored below.
32
It is well-established that an apparently valid consent will not be vitiated merely because
it is not informed. So, for example, if Beauty consents to have sex with Handsome, a man
she has met through an Internet dating site, her consent to have sex with Handsome will
not be rendered invalid merely because he turns out to be HIV+ and she would never have
agreed to have sex with him had she known of that fact.
33
In Chatterton v Gerson (1981),
the claimant had an operation which left her with an extremely painful scar. The claimant
consulted the defendant who was a specialist in treating pain and he suggested that she
have an operation to block the sensory nerve behind the scar which was transmitting pain
signals to her brain. The claimant agreed and the defendant carried out the operation. After
the operation, the claimant discovered that the area around her scar was numb and she had
suffered a loss of muscle power in that area. The claimant sued the defendant, claiming that
the defendant had committed the tort of battery in operating on her. She argued that she
had not validly consented to the operation performed by the defendant because she had
not been informed that there was a risk she would experience numbness and loss of muscle
power if she had that operation. This argument was rejected: as the claimant had known
perfectly well the nature of the operation the defendant was proposing to carry out on her
when she agreed that the defendant could carry out that operation, she validly consented
to that operations being carried out. The fact that she was unaware that the operation
involved some risk for her did not vitiate her consent in any way.
C. Withdrawal of consent
A continuing interference with someones person may be initially consented to, but what
happens if consent is subsequently withdrawn? The general rule is that withdrawal of
consent will render any further interference unlawful. So if A is having sex with his
girlfriend, B, with her consent and she tells him to stop having sex with her, he will commit
a battery if he ignores her and carries on having sex with her.
31
Cf. R v Tabassum [2000] 2 Cr App Rep 328 (defendant persuaded a number of women to let him touch their
breasts by telling them (falsely) that he was a doctor and he could guide them as to the best way to check
themselves for lumps in their breasts; held that he was rightly convicted of indecent assault the women had
not validly consented to being touched by the defendant given that they were consenting to a touching that was
wholly different in nature from the way he was touching them).
32
See below, 2.7(A).
33
R v Dica [2004] QB 1257, at [39].