One Killer Punch is an incredibly hard hitting film which sets out to explore the phenomenon of a one punch kill. With regards to the law and sentencing it is certainly in the grey area because it can be very difficult to establish if the person who threw the punch had intended to do serious harm. By examining three separate assaults this documentary gives us some great insight into several circumstances and how they were viewed in the eyes of the law.

The first case revolves around a house party which gets out of hand, a fight ensues and with one single punch a life is taken. Although the person who was hit did not die immediately and was in fact able to walk home he later died in bed after suffering from a brain haemorrhage.

The second incident is quite strange, seeing two old men arguing over a parking space outside an ASDA shopping centre. An altercation breaks out which seeing one man dishing out a fatal blow but it is not until some grainy CCTV footage is enhanced do we fully understand the true events of what happened.

The final incident revolves around the story of a Merseyside soldier David Ryding, 25, who died after a street fight broke out in Rugby in July 2013. David, who had boxed for the army appeared to throw some punches at 21-year-old Ben Hartwell as they waited outside a taxi rank following a night out in the local nightclub. Ben backed away from him and told him he didn’t want to fight but eventually swung which resulted in a clean knockout and David hitting his head on the ground. The difficulty here was establishing if Ben acted in self defence.