Violence and anti-social behaviour: The law in brief

It is an offence for any person, anywhere, to behave in a threatening or abusive manner which is likely to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm.

It is an offence for any person to play music, musical instrument, sing, perform or use noise making equipment, so as to give another person reasonable cause for annoyance and fail to desist on being required to do by police.

It is an offence for a person to, without reasonable excuse, wilfully or recklessly destroy or damage the property belonging to another.

It is an offence for any person to urinate or defecate in such circumstances as to cause or to be likely to cause annoyance to another person.

It is an offence for any person to send, by means of a public electronic communications network, a message or messages that are grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.

It is an offence for any person to, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to, send by means of a public electronic communications network, a message or messages you know to be false.

It is an offence for any person to be in possession of an offensive weapon in a public place. Offensive weapon means any article, made or adapted for use for causing injury to a person, or intended, by the person having the article, for use for causing injury to a person by the person having it, or some other person. 

Assault is a crime at common law and is any criminal attack directed at the person of another, whether or not actual injury is inflicted.

An assault can easily lead to a more serious charge such as serious assault, assault to permanent disfigurement, attempted murder or murder depending upon a variety of circumstances such as the severity of the attack or the type of injury inflicted or even the ability and expertise of the emergency services or the doctor or surgeon at hospital.