Rex v Meyrick and Ribuffi: CCA 1929

The first count of the indictment alleged that the former police sergeant Goddard and the: ‘two appellants on divers days between the 1st October 1924 and the 24th November 1928 in the County of London, conspired together, and with one Anna Gadda, and other persons unknown, to contravene the provisions of the Licensing Acts by the unlawful sale of intoxicating liquors, and to effect a public mischief by obstructing the Metropolitan Police in the execution of their public duty, and by corrupting officers of that force and contriving to secure that they should make to their superior officers false and misleading reports upon matters referred to them in the course of their official duty for investigation, and thereby to prevent the due administration of the law, and to defeat and pervert the course of justice.’
The question asked was whether ‘the acts of the accused were done in pursuance of a criminal purpose held in common between them’
Held: Lord Hewart, CJ, speaking of the Soho district of London, referred to its relatively small geographical area and said that there were clearly facts upon which a jury could come to the conclusion that the night club proprietors in the district well knew what was happening generally in relation to the police, and that therefore a conspiracy existed.
At common law, the prohibited act of conspiracy is the entry into an unlawful agreement, which need never be implemented. There need not be communication between each conspirator and every other, provided that there be a common design common to each of them all.
Conspiracy is ‘a difficult branch of the law, difficult in itself, and sometimes even more difficult in its application to particular facts or allegations’.
and it is: ‘necessary that the prosecution should establish, not indeed that the individuals were in direct communication with each other, or directly consulting together, but that they entered into an agreement with a common design. Such agreements may be made in various ways. There may be one person, to adopt the metaphor of counsel, round whom the rest revolve. The metaphor is the metaphor of the centre of a circle and the circumference. There may be a conspiracy of another kind, where the metaphor would be rather that of a chain; A communicates with B, B with C, C with D, and so on to the end of the list of conspirators. What has to be ascertained is always the same matter: is it true to say, in the words already quoted, that the acts of the accused were done in pursuance of a criminal purpose held in common between them?’

Judges:

Lord Hewart CJ

Citations:

(1930) 21 Cr App R 94, (1929) 45 TLR 421

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Dicta ApprovedRegina v Parnell 1881
Fitzgerald J said: ‘It may be that the alleged conspirators have never seen each other, and have never corresponded. One may have never heard the name of the other, and yet by the law they may be parties to the same common criminal agreement.’ . .

Cited by:

CitedMehta v Regina CACD 31-Dec-2012
The defendant appealed against his conviction for conspiracy to defraud. His co-defendant and alleged co-conspirator had been acquitted.
Held: The appeal against conviction failed. The defence knew that they were going to have to deal with the . .
CitedSerious Fraud Office v Papachristos and Another CACD 19-Sep-2014
The applicants challenged their convictions and sentences for conspiracy to corrupt. They owned a company manufacturing fuel additives. Technology developments meant that they came under increasing pressure on sales. They were said to have entered . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 30 June 2022; Ref: scu.467720