Joint Enterprise in UK Law

He would put the principle of law to be invoked in this form: that where two persons embark on a joint enterprise, each is liable for the acts done in pursuance of that joint enterprise, that that includes liability for unusual consequences if they arise from the execution of the agreed joint enterprise but (and this is the crux of the matter) that if one of the adventurers goes beyond what has been tacitly agreed as part of the common enterprise, his co-adventurer is not liable for the consequences of that unauthorised act.

I would formulate the principle as follows: where the character of the joint criminal enterprise is such that it is foreseeable that a party or parties may be subject to unusual or increased risks of harm as a consequence of the activities of the parties in pursuance of their criminal objectives, and the risk materialises, the injury can properly be said to be caused by the criminal act of the claimant even if it results from the negligent or intentional act of another party to the illegal enterprise.

In Powell and English itself a major question was whether a secondary party in a murder case must be shown to have been actuated by the mens rea required in the principal offender, and the question was answered in the negative. The subject matter of a joint enterprise is not a state of mind or intention but an objective act which it is contemplated will or might be done.

The simplest form of joint enterprise, in the context of murder, is when two or more people plan to murder someone and do so. If both participated in carrying out the plan, both are liable. It does not matter who actually inflicted the fatal injury. This might be called the paradigm case of joint enterprise liability. The most common example is a planned robbery, in which the participants hope to be able to get what they want without killing anyone, but one of them does in fact kill.

Accordingly, in the appeal of English, I consider that the direction of the learned trial judge was defective (although this does not constitute a criticism of the judge, who charged the jury in conformity with the principle stated in Hyde) because in accordance with the principle stated by Lord Parker in Reg. v. Anderson, at p. 120B, he did not qualify his direction on foresight of really serious injury by stating that if the jury considered that the use of the knife by Weddle was the use of a weapon and an action on Weddle's part which English did not foresee as a possibility, then English should not be convicted of murder.

In our judgment the proposition stated in paragraph 45 is both sound in principle and consistent with Powell and English and Rahman. It would not be just that D should be found guilty of the murder of V by P, if P's 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.

Further, as a matter of principle, the liability of D2 in the third type of joint enterprise scenario, here under discussion, rests, as all these citations show, on his having continued in the common venture of crime A when he realises (even if he does not desire) that crime B may be committed in the course of it.