Abstract
This article examines the structure of fault in the tort of battery through the organising principle that liability turns on whether the defendant is ‘utterly without fault’. While battery protects a clear interest in bodily integrity, the framework by which liability attaches remains conceptually unstable, with recurring conflation between voluntariness, intention, negligent conduct and recklessness. The article develops a structured account of the fault inquiry by distinguishing five analytically separate questions: whether the defendant meant to do the act, what the defendant meant to bring about, why the act was undertaken, how it was performed and whether risk was recognised and disregarded. It argues that maintaining these distinctions is essential to coherent reasoning and demonstrates how their collapse obscures the attribution of fault in modern trespass.