The Police and the Law
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X4001300201 |
| Date | 01 April 1940 |
| Published date | 01 April 1940 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
THE
POLICE JOURNAL
VOL. XIII,
NO.2.
APRIL-JUNE,
1940
The
Police
and
the
Law
AIDING
AND ABETTING
Thornton v. Mitchell
A
IDING
and abetting a crime usually involves active
Il.
co-operation in a deliberate course of criminal conduct.
There
are, however, an increasing
number
of offences usually
of a minor character in respect of which the Legislature has
made it unnecessary to prove
that
the person doing the pro-
hibited act had any wrongful intention.
In
respect of such
crimes all who assist in the prohibited course of conduct can
usually be dealt with as principal offenders. On the other hand
some of these offences are of such a kind
that
although more
than one person's acts may have been necessary to produce the
result, only one of them can be charged as principal offender.
Thus
if a passenger sitting in a motor-car jolts the driver's arm
so that he loses control and runs down a pedestrian, the only
person who can be charged with careless driving is the driver.
It
might at first sight be supposed
that
in any such case, even
if the passenger could not be charged with any specific offence,
he would be liable at any rate as a person who had been present
and aided and abetted the driver in driving without due care
and attention.
This
consequence indeed may follow,
but
the
recent decision of the Divisional Court in Thornton v. Mitchell
(1940, 56 T.L.R. 296) shows
that
this is far from being an
invariable result.
In
that case a motor omnibus which had reached its
destination was about to be reversed. Owing to its construc-
tion the driver could not see out of the back,
but
had to rely
A
129
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