Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland v Maxwell

Facts

The defendant was a member of a paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland. He drove a car ahead of another vehicle carrying other members of the organisation to a public house. He knew that an attack of a terrorist kind was planned but did not know the exact nature of the offence that would be committed. The attack on the premises was then carried out.

History

He was convicted at trial as an aider and abettor of offences connected with the attack. The Northern Ireland Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal, and he appealed to the House of Lords.

Issue

Whether an accessory who knowingly assists a principal must know the precise offence that the principal will commit, or whether it is enough that he contemplated that the principal would commit one of a range of offences.

Held

Appeal dismissed. The defendant had intentionally assisted the principals, knowing that they were going to carry out an attack of the kind in the range he contemplated, and was liable as an accessory.

Ratio

• An accessory who intentionally lends assistance to a principal, knowing that the principal intends to commit one of a number of offences of a limited kind, may be convicted of the offence actually committed, if it falls within the range he contemplated; he need not know the precise crime, the time, or the place.

The judgments

Key reasoning

• The mental element of aiding and abetting is intention to assist coupled with knowledge of the essential matters constituting the offence, and the accessory is not required to share the purpose of the principal.
• Requiring knowledge of the precise offence would allow a person to escape by deliberately remaining ignorant of the details of what his associates planned.
• The defendant knew he was guiding a party on a terrorist operation to a public house and contemplated that it would involve one of a limited class of serious offences, so the offence actually committed fell within the scope of his knowledge.
• The authority of R v Bainbridge [1960] 1 QB 129 supports the principle that knowledge of the type of offence is enough.

Where it fits in the module

Topic 6 on complicity concerns the mental element of the accessory, particularly where the principal commits an offence different from the one the accessory expected. The case sets out the contemplated range approach, which is to be compared with the approach in R v Jogee [2016] UKSC 8, which treated the liability of the accessory as depending on intention to assist or encourage the crime of the principal, with knowledge of the facts that make it an offence. It also bears on the effect of joint enterprise principles.

Criticisms

• A test that turns on a range of offences contemplated by the accessory is vague, since neither the width of the range nor the standard of contemplation is clear.
• Convicting a person of an offence whose precise nature he did not know risks imposing liability on the basis of association with a criminal enterprise rather than proven fault in respect of the specific offence.
• The reasoning blurs the difference between knowing that an offence of some kind will be committed and intending to assist that offence, so the mental element is lowered below intention.