R v. Coney (1882) 8 QBD 534 is an English case in which the Court for Crown Cases Reserved found that a bare-knuckle fight was an assault occasioning actual bodily harm, despite the consent of the participants. This marked the end of widespread public bare-knuckle contests in England.

The case also found that voluntary attendance as a spectator was evidence that could be put to the jury to support a charge of aiding and abetting the assault.

The case has wide applicability to consensual crime cases down to the present day as in R v. Brown.

Judges

• John Duke Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge
• ...

External links

• Pugilistic Prosecutions: Prize Ffighting and the Courts in Nineteenth Century Britain by Jack Anderson

English criminal law | Landmark cases | 1882 in law