Help ! Someone Punched Me In The Face.
If you were assaulted by someone in China, what would you do first? Sara (pseudonym) faced this problem just last month.
Sara was a foreign teacher in an international school until she received a termination notice from the school where she had been working for almost one year.
“However, when I arrived at the school for the handover, I found that the termination and compensation agreement was totally different with the one that I had signed a few days earlier, some pages were replaced. I was so angry that I wanted to tear up the agreement. When I grabbed the agreement, the HR punched me in the face!” Sara said, showing me a photo of her bruised face.
As an English-speaking lawyer specialized in providing legal services for expats in China (see my profile), I instructed her to press charges at police station and try to reach a settlement for compensation if possible. Although the HR denied punching Sara, through negotiation and the mediation of the police officer, both parties eventually agreed on compensation of RMB 10,000.
Sara may be just one of those cases. This article will give you some guidance on what to do if you are assaulted in China.
1. First step: reporting to the police
The first step is to go to the local police station nearest to the place where you were assaulted to report the assault. In most cases, the policeman may not understand English, you can hire an English-speaking lawyer to visit the police station with you (find our contacts in the website) and ask for the lawyer’s support.
If you are unable to visit the local police station for the reason that you are too injured to move or you are afraid of the assailant running away, then you may also call 110 (the police emergency number) and report the assault. The police officer will usually show up within 30 minutes and help you file a report.
2. Provide Information to the police
At the police station, the officer will require you to provide the following details about the assault and assailant:
(1) Your name, nationality, passport number, address.
(2) The assailant’ name, ID number, phone number; if you don’t know the above information, then provide his appearance description as accurately as possible.
(3) When and where the assault occurred.
(4) What happened during the assault (the course of events).
(5) Whether you were injured, and show the injuries.
(6) Whether there were any witnesses.
(7) Anything else about the assault.
3. Collect necessary evidence
- Obtain a hospital report on injury
If you’ve suffered a physical injury from the assault, you’d better go to hospital for examining the injury and getting a hospital report on injury. It can prove the severity of the injury and therefore, to some extent, affect the punishment that the assailant may receive if no medicolegal expertise is taken.
- If necessary, apply for medicolegal expertise
If necessary, you may apply to the police for medicolegal expertise and request a medico-legal report in order to preserve evidence. For an assault case, unlike the hospital diagnostic report, the medicolegal expertise can provide an authoritative assessment of the severity of injury and directly determine whether the assailant will face criminal or administrative sanctions.
- Gather potential witnesses
If the assault took place in the presence of witnesses, contact those witnesses and ask them to testify to the assault, their testimony will be vital for police to investigate the case.
- CCTV camera footage
Find out if there is a CCTV camera that recorded the entire assault, try to obtain the footage or ask the policeman to investigate the footage. It will help you to prove the assault when the assailant denies it.
4. Possible penalties of assault
- Administrative penalty for minor assault
For the minor assault that does not meet the criteria for a criminal offence, the assailant shall be detained for not more than 10 days and shall, in addition, be fined not more than 500 RMB, pursuant to Article 43 of Law on Administrative Penalties for Public Security (Revision 2012).
However, under the following circumstances: (i) gang-fighting; (ii) assaulting a disabled person, pregnant woman, or a person who is under 14 years old or over 60 years old; (iii) assaulting for more than two times, or assaulting more than two persons once, the assailant shall be detained for not less than 10 days but not more than 15 days, and shall be fined more than 500 RMB but less than 1000 RMB.
- Criminal penalty for serious assault
If the police determines that the injury resulting from the assault has constituted minor injury in criminal concept after inspection or medicolegal expertise, which has constituted the crime of intentional injury, the assailant shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of up to three years, criminal detention or public surveillance. However, for the assault causing severe injury, disability or even death, the assailant shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of more than three years, or even life imprisonment or death penalty.
5. Compensation from the assailant
- Settle with the assailant at police station
In the case of minor assault that does not meet the criteria for a criminal offence, the police officer will, if necessary and possible, try to persuade both parties to reach a settlement. Typically, the settlement will involve the assailant paying compensation to the victim, and victim withdrawing the charge against the assailant. The compensation usually includes the hospital treatment expense for injury and other compensation determined by both parties. Once the settlement agreement is reached and the assailant pays the compensation, the assailant will not face any penalties.
- File a civil case
If the parties fail to reach a settlement on compensation, the victim may file a civil case against the assailant. The compensation may include the cost of hospital treatment, nursing care, transportation and nutritional fee, hospital meal allowances, the reduction of income due to the injury, as well as compensation for mental injury (not exceeding RMB 5,000), the disability compensation (if disability results) or death compensation (if death results).
Saway Wang
Email: sawaywang@billionslawyer.com
Tel/Whatsapp: +86 18017682422
