The law in regard to ‘joint enterprise’ has changed…and the BBC was very excited…it just loves a ‘wrongly convicted’ prisoner set free.
Got the impression listening to the BBC yesterday morning that their initial reaction was rather joyous and that they could foresee plenty of ‘exclusive’ BBC stories down the line about injustices being righted as prisoners put in appeal after appeal all of which the BBC would happily devote much campaigning airtime to.
Only later, as surely the emails and texts rolled in to put a different perspective on things, did I hear the BBC presenters start to give a more sympathetic hearing to the families of the murdered.
Odd how times and opinions change…here’s the now current state of affairs….
The law which has allowed people to be convicted of murder even if they did not inflict the fatal blow has been wrongly interpreted for more than 30 years, the Supreme Court has ruled.
The joint enterprise law has been used to convict people in gang-related cases if defendants “could” have foreseen violent acts by their associates.
However, judges ruled it was wrong to treat “foresight” as a sufficient test.
Delivering the judgement, Lord Neuberger said it was wrong to treat “foresight” as a sufficient test to convict someone of murder.
“The court is satisfied after a much fuller review of the law than in the earlier cases that the courts took a wrong turn in 1984. And it is the responsibility of this court to put the law right,” he said.
Strange how previously the same Lord Neuberger thought that not only was foresight of intent to kill worthy of a murder conviction but that even if the accessory only foresaw ‘serious injury’ he was still guilty of murder by reason of joint enterprise……
Lord Neuberger set out why the appeal was rejected:
‘Accordingly, in the absence of special factors, and subject to any good
reason to the contrary, I consider that, even if the primary perpetrator
intended to kill the victim, an alleged accessory should not escape a murder
conviction simply because he only foresaw or expected that the perpetrator
intended to cause serious injury. The mere fact that the perpetrator intended
to kill does not render his actions ‘entirely’ or ‘fundamentally’
different from what the alleged accessory foresaw or intended.’
The Hyde principle and the ‘fundamental difference’ rule
In R v Hyde the Court of Appeal set out the basis of secondary liability for
the collateral offence to a joint enterprise.25 The House of Lords in R v
English qualified this basis with the fundamental difference rule.26 In R v
Rahman this law is restated by Lord Brown as follows:If B realises (without agreeing to such conduct being used) that A may kill
or intentionally inflict serious injury, but nevertheless continues to participate
with A in the venture, that will amount to a sufficient mental element for B to be guilty of murder if A, with the requisite intent, kills in the course
of the venture unless (i) A suddenly produces and uses a weapon of which B
knows nothing and which is more lethal than any weapon which B contemplates
that A or any other participant may be carrying and (ii) for that reason A’s act is to
be regarded as fundamentally different from anything foreseen by B. . . .27
Lord Scott, Lord Rodger and Lord Neuberger endorsed the restatement
of the law proposed by Lord Brown. The law can be summarised as
follows: if a secondary party participates in a joint enterprise in which
the principal commits murder, the secondary party will become liable
for that collateral offence if he contemplated that there was a real risk
that the principal might act with the mens rea for murder in furtherance
of the common purpose unless the English qualification applies. The
qualification requires that the principal suddenly produces and uses a
weapon of which the secondary party knows nothing and which is more
lethal than any weapon of which the secondary party was aware. If this
qualification is satisfied, there is no secondary liability for the collateral
offence.
This is part of an ongoing campaign. The ‘problem’ is that joint enterprise is used to prosecute gang members and guess what? Yep, a lot of those just happen to be black. The BBC ran a ‘flyer’ article on this towards the end of last year. One slight problem – joint enterprise was used to try and get a conviction in the supposed racist murder of Stephen Lawrence…
Didn’t we lose ‘double jeopardy’ on St. Stephen too?
If 500 girls had been rescued from ISIS then that might have justified this kind of celebratory coverage by the BBC. As it is, it’s another reminder that the BBC always, without exception, throws it’s hand in with whichever side is most barbaric and insane.
Consider the double standard though. The BBC thinks there’s a real problem with people accidentally finding themselves in violent lynch mobs and that when a mob of people hack a guy to death in public, only the guy who actually struck the fatal blow should be charged (good luck finding who that is).
Meanwhile, the supposedly inflammatory rhetoric of Donald Trump/Nigel Farage/The Daily Mail/A N Other Conservative, means they are responsible for any incidents occurring anywhere on the planet ever.
If we accept that Winston Silcott, Engin Raghip and Mark Braithwaite didn’t help to hack PC Keith Blakelock to death on the Broadwater Farm estate during the riots in 1985, perhaps they could have told the police who among the frenzied mob really did do it. Someone was heard to shout out, “We’ve got a policeman! Cut him! Cut him!” Note the used of the word ‘we’. Perhaps the BBC could have another look at this case in the context of Joint Enterprise.
And the BBC are happy that Apple won`t give the FBI any help to delve into the Islamaic San Bernardino killers.
I`d have thought that this was a lack of transparency by Apple-and wasn`t that what Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden were heroically trying to prevent as they blabbed the details of anti-Islamic observations(and surely killed plenty people in doing so-how many Beeb?).
But if it furthers IS, Hillary or the Muslim supremacists…well ,fair enough-no further questions Mr Cook!
About time, WE began to boycott and refuse to deal with IS sympathisers like Apple…anti-Trump bigots like the Catholic Church…so won`t go to the Catholics again until the Pope realises that he`s not infallible- just a Guardian reading soclal justice campaigner who doesnt think Col H Jones would have needed a wall to protect him.
Can only think Apple think that their tune boxes are wanted in Mosul-or might be.
Only if you want your friend beheaded by giving him/her the means to play western pop…happened in the town square yesterday according to the Mail.
But we don`t want to hear about THAT now do we Auntie?
Goes without saying that Stephen Lawrences alleged killers won`t be getting any prison visit from Matrix Chambers any time soon?
Wrong case-like Tommy Robinson, justice only applies to the liberals pets…not the nasties who`d threaten their liberal Nutopia.
Gary Newloves murderers ,of course will be getting plenty flyers sent through to THEM though.
The Soviets Union used to bend THEIR laws too-so the murderous thugs were “victims of false consciousness” and only wanted what the toffs had-and if a few old dears missed a few fingers as the rings were cut off…well, that was community service-would terrify the Christians, the decent and the kulaks if these “vulnerable and oppressed young men” if the State showed that it backed THEM-not the goody goodies, the political dissidents and refusniks, and indeed; those who were not yet into the New Progressive Order.
Remind me again-who the hell gave us a “Supreme Court”…the ECHR and Strasbourg?
Oh yes-Blair, Falconer over a weekend when they got Derry Irvine out of the office…so why the hell, do we listen to it?
So Eichmann , Himmler , Hitler and Auschwitz camp guards are innocent in the Beebs eyes !?