CRIME — Conspiracy — Fabricating alibi with another — Whether constituting conspiracy to hinder police

Director of Public Prosecutions of Mauritius v Hurnam

PC (Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Scott of Foscote, Lord Carswell and Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood): 25 April 2007

Conspiracy to fabricate an alibi had the foreseeable and intended result of diverting the police from investigating the suspect's actions and so was capable of founding a charge of conspiracy to hinder the police.

The Privy Council so held in allowing an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions of Mauritius from the order of the Supreme Court of Mauritius quashing the conviction of Devendranath Hurnam of conspiring with another (“B”) to hinder the police in their inquiry into a bank robbery by fabricating an alibi for B. He had successfully appealed to the Supreme Court of Mauritius which had quashed the conviction on the basis that there was no evidence that he had an intention to hinder the police in their inquiry, as opposed to an intention to exculpate B.

LORD CARSWELL, delivering the opinion of the Board, said that the ultimate object may have been to provide a false alibi for B in order to assist him to escape conviction, but it was undoubtedly the intention of the parties to the conspiracy to achieve that object by misleading the police and putting them off the scent, which would have hindered them in their inquiries into the robbery. The Supreme Court had been wrong to have regard only to the ultimate object or intention of the parties. A conspiracy could have several objects and one of the objects might constitute a means of achieving the ultimate object . The immediate intention had been to hinder the police in the accomplishment of their ultimate aim of exculpating B. That was sufficient to constitute the conspiracy with which the defendant had been charged. His Lordship added that the defendant had sought to discredit the findings of fact made by the convicting court and affirmed by the Supreme Court. The rule that the Board would not re-examine the concurrent findings of fact of two lower courts in the case under appeal applied to criminal as well as civil appeals. The rule was subject to the exception that it would not be applied if there had been some miscarriage of justice or violation of some principle of law or procedure. The Board would ordinarily be particularly conscious of the importance of that exception in a criminal appeal. A sufficient case had not been made out for the Board to disturb the concurrent findings of fact in the instant appeal.

Appearances: Geoffrey Cox QC and Faisal Saifee (Royds) for the Director of Public Prosecutions; James Guthrie QC (Saunders) foe the defendant.

Reported by: C T Beresford, barrister