| CRIME — Homicide — Murder — Joint enterprise — Accessory party claiming no knowledge of principal’s intention to kill — Liability — Direction to jury
R v Rahman and others [2008] UKHL 45; [2008] WLR (D) 217
HL(E): Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Scott of Foscote, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury: 2 July 2008
An accessory was liable in respect of an unlawful killing on the basis of his foresight of what the principal might do, not of the intention with which the principal’s act might be performed.
The House of Lords so held when dismissing appeals by Islamur Rahman, Anjum Nisa Amin, Kamer Akram and Liaquat Ali from the dismissal by the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) (Hooper LJ, Gibbs and Roderick Evans JJ) [2007] 1 WLR 219 of their appeals against their convictions of murder on 4 March 2005 at the Crown Court at Leeds (Wakerley J and a jury).
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL said that it had not been alleged or proved at their trial that any of the appellants had personally struck the blow or blows that had caused the death of the deceased. They had been convicted as accessories or secondary parties to a joint enterprise. The deceased had been attacked by a group of Asians, including the appellants, and assaulted with blunt weapons and kicks. There had been some evidence that one member of the group had been seen with a knife. Post mortem examination had shown that the deceased had sustained three knife wounds, one fatal and one potentially fatal, both of which would have required severe force. The participant who had inflicted those injuries had probably not been apprehended. The prosecution had alleged that the appellants had shared a common intention that serious bodily harm should be inflicted on the deceased and that each had known that weapons including a knife or knives might be used. The appellants had claimed that they had joined the enterprise with at most an intention to cause serious bodily harm, without knowledge or foresight that anyone else involved had intended to kill, that they had not had a knife and that they had not known or foreseen that anyone else had had one. It was common ground that the test of an accessory’s liability was foresight. The question was: foresight of what? The appellants’ answer included foresight of the principal’s intention. The Crown’s answer was: foresight of what the principal might do. His undisclosed intention was irrelevant. It was his acts that mattered. His Lordship preferred the Crown’s contention. He would also reject the appellants’ subsidiary submission that the judge should have explained to the jury what was meant by an act “fundamentally different” from what the appellants had implicitly agreed on. He had done so clearly. The Court of Appeal had suggested a series of questions that a judge might invite the jury to consider in such a case, but in his Lordship’s view there could be no prescriptive formula for directing juries. It was for judges to choose the most apt terms for reaching a just decision in the particular case.
LORD SCOTT and LORD NEUBERGER agreed with Lord Bingham.
LORD RODGER and LORD BROWN delivered concurring opinions.
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