Parties Flashcards
Who is a principle offender?
D completes the AR+MR of the principle offence
What is a co-principle?
D + another complete A+R & MR of an offence
Who is an accomplice
D is an accomplice if she aids, abets, procures p to commit the offence
Giannetto [1997] 1 Cr App R 1
D threatened to kill his wife (V) and hired another party (Y) to kill her. V was killed, but it could not be proved who killed her. D was charged with murder on the basis that he either killed V himself as a principal or she was killed by someone on his behalf (ie he was an accomplice).
Crown Court: guilty of murder.
Court of Appeal: conviction upheld on appeal. D may be liable in these circumstances even where the jury are not unanimous on what role he played, as long as they were sure that he was either a principal or an accessory.
How will D be liable if she is found as an accomplice?
Punished as if she committed the crime herself
What is the ulterior mens rea for abetting, aiding, counselling or procuring?
D must intend that P will complete the conduct element of the principal offence
D must intend or know the circumstance element of P’s principal offence
D must intend that P will cause the results (if any) required by the principal offence, unless the principal offence is one of constructive liability
D must intend that P will act with the mens rea required by the principal offence
What is aiding?
‘Aiding’ should be read as ‘assisting’. D may assist at the time P commits the principal offence (eg acting as a lookout, driving the getaway car, etc), or in advance of the offence (eg providing tools, weapons, etc).39 D may satisfy this requirement even where the assistance is unwanted, or even unknown, to P.
Abetting
‘Abetting’ should be read as ‘encouraging’. As with inchoate assisting or encouraging,41 D can encourage positively by instigating or emboldening P (even as one of a number supporting P42) or negatively by threatening.
Clarkson
D1 and D2 entered a room in their barracks in which a woman was being raped by other soldiers. There was no evidence that they provided any assistance or encouragement beyond their choice to enter and remain present. They were charged with rape as accomplices.
Court-Martial: guilty of rape.
Court-Martial Appeal Court: appeal allowed. Voluntary presence is capable of satisfying the actus reus of complicity. However, there was insufficient proof as to mens rea: the prosecution did not prove that D1 and D2 intended to assist or encourage rape by their presence.
Can omission = assisting, abetting or procuring?
Du Cros v Lambourne
D was charged with driving a motor vehicle at a dangerous speed. However, it could not be proved whether he was driving or was a passenger.
Petty Sessions: guilty of driving at a dangerous speed. Conviction in the alternative that he was either driving, or was (as owner of the car) assenting to P’s speeding by failing to intervene.
Quarter Sessions: conviction upheld on appeal.
King’s Bench: appeal dismissed.
What if P does the act without being informed?
D will be liable for the full offence
Bryce
D drove P to a place to enable P to kill V. D foresaw that P would kill V. P did kill V, but a full 12 hours after D’s involvement, and only following discussion with another party. D was charged with murder as P’s accomplice.
Crown Court: guilty of murder.
Court of Appeal: conviction upheld on appeal. Despite the time delay between D’s acts and the killing, and despite other contributory facts, D’s acts continued to provide some assistance to the murder.
How is abetting proven?
it must be proved that D’s encouragement was communicated to P.Once it is demonstrated that P was aware of D’s encouragement, there is no requirement to prove that any encouragement by D had a positive effect on P’s conduct. Even if D’s encouragement was ignored by P, D will be liable provided the counselled offence was committed by P.
What is procuring?
To procure is to ‘produce by endeavour’. does involve causation.
Tuck v Robson
A (a pub landlord) aided and abetted when he permitted customers to continue drinking alcohol after the licensing hours. However, in Clarkson [1971], A’s mere presence at the scene of a crime, where there was no duty to prevent the crime, was not aiding. There has to be evidence of assistance or encouragement (and an intention that A’s act would assist or encourage).
Attorney-General’s Reference (No 1 of 1975)
A secretly laced P’s drinks, knowing P would shortly be driving home. This was procuring P’s offence of drink driving. There was a causal connection between A’s acts and the principal crime, and A foresaw the principal crime. Lord Widgery CJ held: ‘You procure a thing by setting out to see that it happens and taking the appropriate steps to produce that happening.’
MR for assisting or abetting
it must be shown that A intended to assist P to commit the offence, with P having the mens rea required for that offence.
What if P does something that D did not expect to happen?
A will not be liable if P does something completely different to that which A intended to assist (Tas [2018]).
125Grant
Grant and four others were driving around looking for two men they wished to cause serious harm to. The plan was to try and run them over. They succeeded in their plan but then two of the group got out of the car and hit the victims with a metal bar, killing one. Grant claimed these acts had not been intended or foreseen by him. However, the Court of Appeal held he was liable as an accomplice because he had intended to assist in a killing and his conduct had not been ‘so distanced in time, place or circumstances from the conduct of (the perpetrator) that it would not be realistic to regard (his or her) offence as encouraged or assisted by it’.
Cogan and Leak
D told his wife (V) to have sexual intercourse with his friend (P). V was scared of D and so, although she did not consent, she did not resist P. P was unaware that V was not consenting. P was charged with rape, with D as his accomplice.
Crown Court: guilty of rape (both D and P).
Court of Appeal: P’s appeal allowed—there was a misdirection relating to the mens rea required of P for rape.72 D’s conviction upheld—although P was innocent, D nevertheless procured the offence of rape.
MR for assisting, abetting, procuring
D must intend to do acts of assist or encouragement (or to procure);
(ii)
D must intend that P will commit the offence with the relevant mens rea;
(iii)
D must also know the other essential elements of the offence.
What is MR of D’s own conduct
- D’s conduct is voluntary
- D must intend that her conduct will assist or encourage P to commit the principal offence; or in the context of procuring, that her conduct will cause the principal offence.
National Coal Board v Gamble
D supplied coal to P. At the weigh-station, before P was able to leave with the coal, D found that P’s lorry was overladen to the extent that taking the lorry on the road became an offence.81 Nevertheless D allowed P to leave with the overladen lorry. D was charged as an accomplice to P’s offence.
DPP for NI v Maxwell
D was a member of the proscribed organisation UVF in Northern Ireland and he assisted P by driving him to a pub. D knew that P intended to attack the pub, but was unsure whether this would involve planting explosives, murder, or robbery. In the event, P damaged the pub using pipe bombs. D was charged as an accessory to the explosives offence.102
