(Court of Crown Cases Reserved) A count on the indictment alleged that the defendant: ‘knowingly and wickedly did encourage certain persons, whose names to the jurors were unknown, to murder certain other persons, to wit sovereigns and rulers of Europe.’ The jury had been directed by Lord Coleridge CJ, that if they thought by the publication of the article the defendant did intend to, and did, encourage or endeavour to persuade any person to murder any other person, whether a subject of Her Majesty or not, or whether within the Queen’s dominion or not, and that such encouragement and endeavouring to persuade was the natural and reasonable effect of the article they should find him guilty.
Held: The direction was approved. Denman CJ said: ‘The statute was passed for the very purpose, I think, of rendering it a more serious offence than the common law rendered it to do such an act as this’ and ‘I think the circulation to the world, to multitudes of persons wholly undefined, and to whom it would come, would be sufficient . . .’
Judges:
Denman CJ
Citations:
(1881) 7 QBD 244
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: 14 May 2022; Ref: scu.247647