Killers will literally get away with murder, ex-PC`s widow warns on joint enterprise ruling

Criminal trial judges wrongly interpreted the law on joint enterprise for more than 30 years, the Supreme Court has ruled.

But the widow of a murdered former police officer has warned the landmark ruling — delivered at a hearing in London on Thursday (February 18) — could lead to killers “literally getting away with murder”.

Meanwhile campaigners claim hundreds of convictions could be challenged on appeal as a result of the judgment.

Justices said prosecutors, judges and jurors had to take a different approach when dealing with defendants accused of being involved in joint enterprise crimes.

They said it was not right that someone should be guilty merely because they foresaw that a co-accused might commit a crime.

The panel said jurors should view “foresight” only as evidence to be taken into account, not as proof.

Five Supreme Court justices analysed the issue originally at a hearing in London in October when considering an appeal by a man who was convicted of murder after egging on a friend to stab a former Leicestershire Police officer.

Ameen Jogee and Mohammed Hirsi, both in their 20s, were given life sentences at Nottingham Crown Court in March 2012 after being convicted of ex-PC Paul Fyfe`s murder.

Jurors heard that Hirsi stabbed Mr Fyfe at a house in Leicester in June 2011 while being egged on by Jogee.

A judge imposed a minimum 22-year term on Hirsi and 20 years on Jogee, whose term was cut to 18 years by the Court of Appeal.

The Supreme Court has allowed Jogee`s appeal against conviction but he will stay in prison while prosecutors decide whether he should be retried.

Speaking before the ruling, Mr Fyfe`s widow Tracey said she regarded Jogee as culpable for her husband`s death because he knew what Hirsi was doing and was egging him on.

She said: “I think it is a very important law and it think it would be quite devastating for the victims` families like us, which would mean that criminals like Ameen Jogee would literally be getting away with murder.”

Jogee could now be retried for murder or sentenced on the lesser charge of manslaughter.

The UK Supreme Court and Privy Council (UKSC/PC) ruling held that the law took a “wrong turn” in 1984, with the decision in Chan Wing-Siu.

Chan Wing-Siu and the cases following it were disavowed by the UKSC/PC, which means that now there is only one test for secondary liability in English law: ordinary accessorial liability.

It is unclear how many convictions will actually be impacted upon by this decision, because the UKSC/PC was clear that a jury can infer the intention to encourage or assist a crime from foresight that the crime might be committed.

The panel judgment determined that the effect of putting the law right is not to render invalid all convictions which were arrived at over many years by faithfully applying the law as laid down in Chan Wing-Siu and in Powell and English.

The error identified is important as a matter of legal principle, but it does not follow that it will have had the same effect on the facts as to the outcome of the trial or to the safety of the conviction.

Equally, where a conviction has been arrived at by faithfully applying the law as it stood at the time, it can be set aside only by seeking exceptional leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal out of time.

That court has the power to grant such leave, and may do so if substantial injustice can be demonstrated. But it will not do so simply because the law applied has now been declared to have been mistaken.

This principle has been consistently applied for many years.

The justices argued that “alarming consequences” could ensue from permitting the general re-opening of old cases on the ground that a decision of a court of authority had removed a widely held misconception as to the prior state of the law on which the conviction which it was sought to appeal had been based.

And they reasserted a principle from a case going back 40 years which stated: