PARTIES - Case Law Flashcards
R V PENE - Intention to help or encourage
R V PENE - Intention to help or encourage must exist
A party must intentionally help or encourage - it is insufficient if they were reckless as to whether the principal was assisted or encouraged.
R V RENATA - Multiple offenders
R V RENATA - Multiple offenders
Three offenders beat the victim to death in the car park of a tavern. The prosecution was unable to establish which blow was the fatal one or which of the three offenders administered it. The court held that where the principal offender cannot be identified, it is sufficient to prove that each individual accused must have been either the principal or a party in one of the ways contemplated by s66(1).
LARKINS V POLICE - Actual proof of assistance
LARKINS V POLICE - Actual proof of assistance is required
While it is unnecessary that the principal should be aware that he or she is being assisted, there must be proof of actual assistance. The mere commission of an act intended to have that effect is insufficient. Absence of knowledge by the principal that he is being assisted removes a common foundation for a finding of actual assistance, namely that the principal was able to proceed with his enterprise with the additional confidence gained because his accomplice was on the lookout for unwanted intervention.
ASHTON V POLICE - Legal duty
ASHTON V POLICE - Legal duty
An example of a secondary party owing a legal duty to a third person or to the general public is a person teaching another person to drive. That person is, in New Zealand, under a legal duty to take reasonable precautions, because under s156 of the Crimes Act 1961 he is deemed to be in charge of a dangerous thing.
R V RUSSELL - Special relationship
R V RUSSELL - Special relationship
The accused was charged with the murder of his wife and two sons. Following an argument between the accused and his wife, the wife, in the presence of the accused, allegedly jumped into a swimming pool with both children, drowning them all. The accused failed to render assistance to his wife or their children. The court held that the accused was morally bound to take active steps to save his children, but by his deliberate abstention from so doing, and by giving the encouragement and authority of his presence and approval to his wife’s act he became an aider and abettor and thus a secondary offender.
R V BETTS AND RIDLEY – Common Intention
R V BETTS AND RIDLEY – Common Intention
An offence where no violence is contemplated and the principal offender in carrying out the common aim uses violence, a secondary offender taking no physical part in it would not be held liable for the violence used.
