Accessory After The Fact

Question 1

What is an accessory after the fact?

Answer 1

An accessory after the fact is a person who assists the offender, or destroys or tampers with evidence, in order to help the offender to avoid arrest, or to escape after arrest.

Question 2

Elements

Answer 2

• knowing any person to have been a party to the offence
• receives, comforts or assists that person or tampers with or actively suppresses any evidence against him
• to enable him to escape after arrest, avoid arrest or conviction

Question 3

R v Crooks

Answer 3

Knowledge means actual knowledge or belief in the sense of having no real doubt that the person assisted was a party to the relevant offence. Mere suspicion of
their involvement in the offence is insufficient.

Knowledge must exist at the time assistance is given

Question 4

R v Briggs

Answer 4

As with a receiving charge under s246(1), knowledge may also be inferred from wilful blindness or a deliberate abstention from making inquiries that would confirm the suspected truth.

Question 5

R v Mane

Answer 5

To be considered an accessory the acts done by the person must be after the
completion of the offence

Question 6

Section and act

Answer 6

Section 71, ca 1961