Attorney General's Reference (No. 1 of 1975)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE |
| Judgment Date | 25 April 1975 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1975] EWCA Crim J0425-1 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Docket Number | No. 379 - R. 75 |
| Date | 25 April 1975 |
[1975] EWCA Crim J0425-1
The Lord Chief Justice of England (Lord Widgery)
Mr. Justice Bristow
and
Mr. Justice May
No. 379 - R. 75
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
SIR JOSEPH T. MOLONY, Q. C. and MR. N. J. M. HAMILTON appeared on behalf of the Attorney General.
MR. J. G. MARRIAGE, Q. C. and MR. CHRISTOPHER GARDNER appeared as amici curiae.
This case comes before the Court on a reference from the Attorney General under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1972, and by his reference he asks the following question: "Whether an accused who surreptitiously laced a friend's drinks with double measures of spirits when he knew that his friend would shortly be driving his car home, and in consequence his friend drove with an excess quantity of alcohol in his body and was convicted of the offence under the Road Traffic Act 1972 section 6(1) is entitled to a ruling of no case to answer on being later charged as an aider and abetter counsellor and procurer, on the ground that there was no shared intention between the two, that the accused did not by accompanying him or otherwise positively encourage the friend to drive, or on any other ground."
It is of course now well known that the purpose of section 36 of the Act of 1972 is to enable the Attorney General to obtain a ruling on a point of law which is not capable of being investigated by the normal appellate procedure because the case in which the point of law arose resulted in an acquittal of the accused. It would be a mistake to think, and I hope people will not think, that references by the Attorney General are confined to cases where very heavy questions of law arise and that they should not be used in other cases. On the contrary, I hope to see this procedure used extensively for short but important points which require a quick ruling of this Court before a potentially false decision of law has too wide circulation in the courts.
The present question has no doubt arisen because in recent years there have been a number of instances where men charged with driving their motor cars with an excess quantity of alcohol in the blood have sought to excuse their conduct by saying that their drinks were laced, as the jargon has it; that is to say some strong spirit was put into an otherwise innocuous drink and as a result the driver consumed more alcohol than he had either intended to consume or had the desire to consume. The relevance of all that is not that it entitles the driver to an acquittal because such driving is an absolute offence, but it can be relied upon as a special reason for not disqualifying the driver from driving. Hence no doubt the importance which has been attached in recent months to the possibility of this argument being raised in a normal charge of driving with excess alcohol.
The question, as I have already disclosed, requires us to say whether on the facts posed there is a case to answer, and needless to say in the trial from which this reference is derived the Judge was of the opinion that there was no case to answer and so ruled. We have to say in effect whether he is right.
The language referred to in the section which determines whether a secondary party, as they are sometimes called, is guilty of a criminal offence committed by another embraces the four words "aid, abet, counsel or procure". The origin of those words is to be found in section 8 of the Accessories and Abettors Act, 1861, which provides: "Whosoever shall aid, abet, counsel or procure the commission of any misdemeanor, whether the same be a misdemeanor at common law or by virtue of any Act passed or to be passed, shall be liable to be tried, indicted and punished as a principal offender."
Thus, in the past, when the distinction was still drawn between felony and misdemeanor, it was sufficient to make a person guilty of a misdeameanor if he aided, abetted, counselled or procured the offence of another. When the difference between felonies and...
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