The defendants appealed their convictions under common law for a conspiracy to defraud. The conspiracy was within the jurisdiction but the intended fraudulent acts would happen in Germany. The Court of Appeal quashed the convictions for conspiracy.
Held: The House rejected the prosecutor’s appeal on the basis that a conspiracy to commit a crime abroad is not indictable in England unless the contemplated crime is one for which an indictment would lie here. The offence of conspiracy is an attempt to anticipate the substantive offence before even an attempt, and so is essential to keeping the peace. Lord Tucker approved a passage from the Court of Appeal considering section 4 of the 1861 Act: ‘Referring to section 4 of the Offences Against the Person Act, 1861, which makes a conspiracy in this country to murder any person abroad whether within the Queen’s domains or not, and whether the person is or is not a subject of the Queen, a misdemeanour punishable with a maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment, the court observed that as at any rate since 33 Henry 8, c.23, a British subject had been indictable in this country for murder committed abroad and the Offences Against the Person Act, 1828, expressly provided for the trial of any of His Majesty’s subjects charged in England with murder committed on land out of the United Kingdom, whether within the King’s dominions or without, it followed that being an accessory to murder abroad or conspiracy to murder abroad was triable here. They were accordingly of opinion that section 4 of the Act of 1861 did not alter the common law but provided a special penalty and made it clear that such a conspiracy by anyone in this country was indictable. This reasoning was not contested before your Lordships by either side and is clearly right.’ Lord Tucker: ‘I have reached the conclusion that the decision of the Court of Appeal that a conspiracy to commit a crime abroad is not indictable in this country unless the contemplated crime is one for which an indictment would lie here is correct.’
Judges:
Lord Tucker
Citations:
[1957] AC 602
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Abu Hamza CACD 28-Nov-2006
The defendant had faced trial on terrorist charges. He claimed that delay and the very substantial adverse publicity had made his fair trial impossible, and that it was not an offence for a foreign national to solicit murders to be carried out . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.247646