{"id":1507,"date":"2010-04-04T19:33:25","date_gmt":"2010-04-04T18:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/?p=1507"},"modified":"2010-04-04T19:33:25","modified_gmt":"2010-04-04T18:33:25","slug":"secondaries-parties-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/?p=1507","title":{"rendered":"Secondaries parties revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

R v Mendez and Thompson <\/strong><\/em>[2010] CA<\/strong>
\nDD were part of a group who chased their victim in the street following a fight at a house about stolen Xboxes. The prosecution alleged that Thompson was the stabber. The jury convicted Thompson and Mendez on the basis that they were secondary parties.<\/p>\n

One ground for Mendez\u2019s appeal was whether the use of the knife was \u201cfundamentally different\u201d from anything he foresaw. Thompson appealed on similar grounds.<\/p>\n

Held<\/strong>: The court reviewed all the existing cases on joint enterprise and allowed their appeals.
\nD is not liable for the murder of V if the direct cause of V\u2019s death was a deliberate act by P, which was of a kind (a) unforeseen by D and (b) likely to be altogether more life threatening than acts of the kind intended or foreseen by D.<\/p>\n

“It would not be just that D should be found guilty of murder of V by P, if P\u2019s act was of a different kind from, and much more dangerous than, the sort of acts which D intended or foresaw as part of the joint enterprise.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The principle established in Chan Wing-Siu<\/strong><\/em> [1985] H<\/strong><\/span>L and reaffirmed in Powell and English <\/strong><\/em>[1999] HL<\/strong><\/span> is that a secondary party is criminally liable for acts by the primary offender of a type, which the former foresees as a possibility but does not intend. Lord Rodger illustrated the principle in Rahman <\/strong><\/em>[2008] HL<\/strong><\/span>:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cSuppose that, knowing what A is like and that he tends to carry a gun, B contemplates that A may take a gun and use it in the course of the attack on the victim. Then, even if B is vehemently opposed to the use of a gun and tries to dissuade A from carrying one, nevertheless, if, being aware of the risk, B takes part in the joint assault, he will be guilty of murder if A shoots the victim.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lord Mustill in Powell and English<\/strong><\/em><\/span> stated that where D and P embark on a criminal venture in which P goes further than D wishes, but foreseeably so, D has a measure of culpability for P\u2019s act and V\u2019s resulting death but usually at a lower level than P, D is guilty of murder.<\/p>\n

In the instant case it was submitted that the unforeseen use of a knife was plainly so different from anything foreseen by Mendez that no jury could have found him guilty of murder on a proper direction.<\/p>\n

Not guilty of murde<\/strong>r, guilty of violent disorder
\nCommentary<\/strong>: This case has been reported as showing confusion of the law, but it appears that the law was simply misapplied in this case.
\nWhole case here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

R v Mendez and Thompson [2010] CA DD were part of a group who chased their victim in the street following a fight at a house about stolen Xboxes. The prosecution alleged that Thompson was the stabber. The jury convicted Thompson and Mendez on the basis that they were secondary parties. One ground for Mendez\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1508,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions\/1508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}