The appellant was given leave to appeal on the single ground that the direction given by the judge in response to a note from the jury allowed the possibility that the appellant and his co-accused were convicted of the offence charged without the jury necessarily being sure that they were all guilty of the same conspiracy. The appellant also renews his application for permission to appeal on the ground that the judge failed properly to direct the jury as to the need for proof both of the conspiracy alleged and of the appellant’s participation in it. The complaint made under this head is linked with the complaint made about the judge’s response to the question from the jury and we give leave for the appellant to advance it.
Held: ‘it is possible . . that the evidence may prove the existence of a conspiracy of narrower scope and involving fewer people than the prosecution originally alleged, in which case it is not intrinsically wrong for the jury to return guilty verdicts accordingly, but it is always necessary that for two or more persons to be convicted of a single conspiracy each of them must be proved to have shared a common purpose or design’
Judges:
Toulson LJ, Griffith Williams J, Stuart-Smith J
Citations:
[2013] EWCA Crim 160
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Serious 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: 14 November 2022; Ref: scu.471175