Joint Enterprise - Foresight of Risk of Harm to Another Insufficient for Murder  

Extracts from the article as follows:

Mark George QC has recently been lecturing solicitors on the liability of secondary parties for murder in the light of recent joint enterprise cases. He says the prosecution faced two major difficulties in this case. “First, on the basis of the forensic evidence they had to accept D was not the killer of the unfortunate passer-by, killed by a bullet during a shoot-out in a south London car park. Secondly, the killer was not in the dock. So, as frequently happens these days, the prosecution were thrown back onto the argument that this was a joint enterprise killing. The difficulty for the Crown however was to identify the joint purpose of two persons who had diametrically opposed intentions, namely to kill or seriously injure the other when it could hardly be suggested there was a joint enterprise to have themselves killed by the other!”

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George adds that along with the cases of R v Mendez and R v A, decided just eleven days earlier, this is the third time the Court of Appeal has been called upon to decide cases involving this difficult issue in the last four months. “Whilst the cases have all upheld the law as settled in R v Powell, R v English and R v Rahman it remains far from clear whether the law actually reflects what ought to be the criminal liability of those who participate in attacks on others without sharing the intentions of those who kill.”

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