House of Lords
| Published date | 01 April 1974 |
| Date | 01 April 1974 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201837403800204 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
House of Lords
CONSPIRACY
TO
TRESPASS
R.
v. Kamara
INaffirming the decision of the Court of Appeal in
R.
v. Kamara
(1973,2
W.L.R.
126;
37
J.CL.
103), the House of Lords does
not
seem to have stated the law in the wide terms employed in the
Court
below: see 1973, 3 W.L.R. 198. Nonetheless, those profes-
sionally concerned with the protection of civil liberties have
not
been slow to point
out
that
many
of the sit-ins
and
the
squatting
of recent times have now effectively been declared illegal.
It
has
even been claimed
that
the decision will open the way to politically-
motivated prosecutions.
In
the Times, it was (with greater reason)
pointed
out
that
the decision does little to clear
up
the inherently
confusing state of the law relating to conspiracy. Indeed, it may be
argued
that,
in an effort to avoid the sweeping generality of the
Court
of Appeal's pronouncement, the House of Lords has
introduced even
further
complication into the law.
But
at least
it is now clear
that
conspiracy to commit a
tort
may
amount
to an
indictable offence
and
it is the wide
area
of potential prosecution
which this general principle opens up
that
has caused the claim
that
the
common law of conspiracy should now be placed
under
some measure of
statutory
control.
It
will be recalled
that
students who agreed to occupy,
and
who occupied,
the
premises of
the
High
Commission for Sierra
Leone in London were convicted of conspiracy to trespass
and
of
unlawful assembly. Although no-one was injured,
and
although
the
students acted
under
agenuine sense of grievance, the caretaker
was threatened
with
an imitation gun,
the
members of
the
staff
were detained
and
some of those members were frightened by
the
treatment
they received, although no-one outside the building was
put
in fear.
In
upholding
the
convictions, the
Court
of Appeal
enunciated the general proposition
that
aconspiracy to trespass is a
common law offence, so
that,
for example, an agreement between
two
persons
out
walking in
the
country to cross a farmer's field
would be an indictable offence.
The
House of Lords, while agreeing
that
trespass or
any
other
tort
may
form
the
element of illegality
necessary in conspiracy, has laid down the additional requirement of
one of two additional factors.
Lord
Hailsham L.C. stated
that
there
must
also be proved either
(a)
that
the execution of the agreement
132
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