Miscarriages of Justice

You may remember that in the March Edition of the Update, we reported the case R v Jogee, Ruddock v The Queen [2016] UKSC 8.  This case, which was decided in the Supreme Court, set aside murder convictions based on joint enterprise by overturning previous decisions.  It was ruled that the secondary party must intend to assist or encourage someone to commit the crime in order to secure a conviction.  Foresig

The cases heard were appeals against murder convictions which had been based on the principle of joint enterprise.  The appellants alleged that the cases of Chan Wing-Siu (1985) and Powell and English (1999) and the cases which followed them had been wrongly decided.

In Jogee’s case, it was alleged that he encouraged his co-defendant to commit murder, although he was not inside the house when the incident took place.