Complicity (Secondary Party – Passive)

Often more than one person is involved in the commission of a criminal offence.
The person who is the most immediate cause of the actus reus is known as the principal. If two persons
are involved, for example in stabbing a victim, they both may be principals. If a person procures
(arranges/causes) an innocent party (minor) to commit the actus reus of a criminal offence, the principal
is the procurer. Everyone else involved in the crime is referred to as an accessory, also known as
accomplice, or secondary party.

1. S8 of the Accessories and Abettors Act 1861 states how a person who is an accessory to an offence is
guilty of the substantive offence rather than an inchoate offence.

• Swindall and Osborne:

-The case establishes how the prosecution will generally specify whether a person is indicted as principal
or as an accessory, but this is not strictly necessary since he is being indicted for the substantive offence
rather than his participation in it.

- This provides the prosecution with the advantage of allowing a case to proceed even where it is not
clear which of two or more parties was the principal and which was the accessory.

• The application of the above rule can be seen in Giannetto:

- W had been murdered but there was insufficient evidence to show whether the killing was done by G,
W’s husband, or by a hitman who G had procured to do the killing. The COA said that this lack of
evidence was not fatal to the conviction since, one way or another, G had committed murder – either by
killing W himself or by encouraging another to do so.

2. Trial Procedures:
- Although there is no formal difference between accessory and principal, the accused’s status may
nevertheless make a difference as to the way in which the trial is conducted.
- In particular, the mental element to be established differs according to whether the accused is a
principal or an accessory.
- An accessory need not be shown to have the mens rea for the substantive offence, only that he
intended to assist the principal in his commission of it. For example, on a trial of murder where there are
co-defendants, the prosecution will need to establish that one of them has the mens rea for murder and
that the other, if he lacks the specific mens rea, nevertheless intended to help the other commit the
offence.
- What this basically means is that the prosecution will establish both either as joint principals or identify
one of the defendants as a principal and the other as an accessory.

• In Smith v Mellors and Soar:

- M and S were charged with a drink-driving offence, a crime of strict liability. The evidence against them

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seemed superficially (on the surface) overwhelming.
- Both were seen running away from a car which had been driven by one of them with the other his
passenger. Both were also drunk.
- The prosecution were, however, not able to prove who had driven the car. This proved fatal to the
conviction of either of them. It was held that while it was not necessary to show who had been driving, it
was necessary to show that whoever had not been driving knew the other to be unfit to drive.
- This was because proving the guilt of the accessory requires it to be shown that he intended to assist
the principal in the commission of such an offence.
- Without proof of knowledge, such intention could not be established.
- If both were convicted, a substantial possibility arose that one of the passengers would be convicted
for aiding/abetting a crime which he did not know was being committed and/or was unable to prevent.
- Under those circumstances, it was right that neither should be convicted.

- Problems arise in cases of mens rea where it is not possible to prove the respective roles of principal
and accessory.
- If a prosecution can only establish that an offence was committed by A or B, is unable to identify which
of them, and is unable to show that the other was necessarily either an accomplice or a co-principal, the
prosecution must fail.

• This occurred in Lane and Lane:

- A child was fatally injured at an uncertain time between noon and 8:30 pm.
- Evidence showed that during this period one or the other parents was with the child, sometimes
together, sometimes alone.
- Charged with manslaughter. A submission of no case to answer succeeded.
- Since it could not be shown that both parents were present throughout the time period, the injuries
could have been inflicted by either of the parents in the absence of the other.
- This raised a reasonable doubt in the case of both parents as to whether either individually
perpetrated the offence and/or assisted or encouraged it.

- However, where the prosecution’s only problem is in establishing which D actually did it and which was
his assistant a prosecution will succeed.
- In such cases the prosecution is able to show that both have committed the offence as in accordance
with S8.

• For example, in Gianneto:

- G was convicted for the murder of his wife.
- G appealed on the ground that there was insufficient evidence to show whether it was him or the
hitman who had done the killing.
- COA asserted the essential element was that the jury find either that G had killed his wife or had
encouraged another to do so. If the Crown could not say which, the jury need only be agreed that G had
mens rea and caused the proscribed result.

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• This also occurred in Forman and Ford:
- Two police officers were in a cell with a suspect. One of the officers assaulted the suspect but it could
not be established who was the assailant or that they had acted in concert.
- It was held that both could be convicted upon proof that one of them committed the assault and that
the other, in breach of duty, had neither prevented it nor had done anything to discourage it.

- Although the accessory is tried, indicted and punished in the same way as the principal offender, what
the prosecution needs to establish a conviction differs alarmingly.
- To be guilty of murder, one has to establish proof of an intention to kill/cause GBH.
- However, to be guilty of murder as a secondary party, prosecution must only prove that A, in
furtherance of an intention to assist/encourage P to kill/cause GBH to v, provided such acts or
encouragement.
- It does not have to even prove that A themselves intended the death/GBH to V. It does not have to
even show that A’s acts of assistance or encouragement caused P to kill V or even influenced P’s actions.

5. Elements of accessoryship:

Note:

• Doctrine of Innocent agency: is a doctrine by which primary liability is attributed to a manipulator

(secondary party) who used an innocent party to commit a crime. The doctrine of innocent agency
does not make the instigator an accessory to the noncrime of the innocent agent. Instead, it makes
the instigator the perpetrator under the law.

• Doctrine of derivative liability: It is where liability of the secondary party arises or derives from the
commission of the offence by the principal. There are a few problems/gaps with this doctrine, what if
there is a defence to the principal.. etc?

• Actus Reus:

◘ P must have committed an offence:

- The theory of accessoryship is that A’s liability does not derive from what A has done but from what P
has done. This is why a gunsmith is guilty of murder simply by supplying a gun to P which they know will
be used to commit murder.
- A’s liability derives from the fact that they have lent support to P in the commission of the offence of
murder.
- In theory, this means that if P does not commit an offence, A cannot be complicity in it. This is true, but
only to a limited extent.
- Where the actus reus of the offence is missing, accessorial liability cannot arise, since there is no crime
from which liability can derive.

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• This can be illustrated by Thornton v Mitchell:
- A bus driver was reversing his bus relying, as is usual, on the signals of his conductor.
- The conductor negligently gave the all clear, when in fact, there was a pedestrian behind the bus.
- The bus reversed into the pedestrian injuring him. The driver was charged with careless driving with
the conductor as an accessory.
- Charge against driver was dismissed on the ground that he had not been careless in relying upon his
conductor’s signals.
- The conductor was, therefore, also acquitted on the grounds that there was no offence to abet.
- There is one statutory exception to this rule that a person cannot be an accessory to something which
is not a crime, namely complicity in suicide under S2 of the Suicide Act 1961.

• In Cogan and Leak:

- L encouraged C to have intercourse with L’s wife. As a result of what L told him, C believed the wife
was consenting when in fact she was being coerced by L.
- C was acquitted of rape for lack of mens rea.
- Would this be fatal to L’s conviction? Since the principal was no longer in existence.
- The dominant approach in this case was that L’s liability for rape was founded upon the use of Cogan
as the instrument of his unlawful intention, namely for his wife to suffer nonconsensual intercourse.

- Although on the face of it, it seems reasonable. However, there are two important objections to the
use of the doctrine (derivative liability) in this case:

• An initial difficulty is that rape, unlike murder or theft, does not appear to be a crime that one can
commit by proxy (substitution of another person). We can draw this conclusion by S1 of the Sexual
Offences Act 2003 which states: ‘A person commits an offence if he intentionally penetrates the vagina,
anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis (and B does not consent to the penetration).
However it was not L who ‘intentionally penetrated the vagina.. with his penis’ of L’s wife, that was C.
This raises another possibility, since once can be convicted without effecting personal penetration, this
means women can be potentially liable for rape as principal, not merely as an accessory. This goes
against the crux of S1 which requires the perpetrator to be a male – ‘with his penis’. Does this mean, in
general, that wherever an offence is defined in personal activity by the accused, A’s failure to engage in
such personal activity will not be fatal to a conviction. So can one be guilty of bigamy without entering a
registry office? Or can one be dangerous driving without entering a car?

• The second difficulty arises on that basis that L, being W’s husband, was legally incapable at the time
of committing rape upon her (before R v R). If L cannot legally commit rape on his wife, it does seem to
logically follow that L cannot legally commit rape on his wife, whether with or without the innocent
instrumentality of another.

- On an alternative basis, the conviction in Cogan could have been that the court held the husband could
be found guilty as accessory to rape even though the other was acquitted for lack of mens rea. The
decision abandons the requirement that liability derive from the liability of another. What is important is

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that an offence took place, not that C was liable for it.
- The D’s liability then lies in his decision to procure the commission of the offence, not his assistance in
C’s commission of it, since an actus reus had been committed, L’s own undoubted mens rea could be
grafted to that very actus reus.

• This approach was also informed in the earlier case of R v Bourne:

- H forced his wife W to submit to buggery (anal/oral sex) with a dog. (It is an offence for buggery with
animals too. Keep this in mind).
- Although W was not charged with the offence, H was convicted as an accessory to buggery.
- His conviction was upheld on appeal, that basis of the decision being that although the wife would
have been able to avail herself of a defence and thus escape liability, the principal offence would still
have been committed thus allowing the conviction of H.

VERY IMPORTANT:
LAW COMMISSION RECCOMENDATIONS:
- Common law doctrine of innocent agency should be replaced by a statutory offence whereby D would
be liable for an offence as a principle offender if he/she intentionally caused P, an innocent agent, to
commit the conduct element of an offence but P does not commit the offence because P is:
i. Under the age of 10 years;
ii. Has a defence of insanity;
iii. Acts without the fault requirement to be convicted of the offence;
- This allows for liability in all types of problem cases such as the two above.

◘ Aiding, abetting, counseling or procuring the offence:

- The conduct elements for accesoryship are aiding, abetting, counseling or procuring the offence.
- In theory each of these terms describe distinct behaviours: ‘aid’ means to help or assist, ‘abet’ involves
instigation or encouragement, ‘counsel’ implies advising or urging.
- These words can particularly be reduced to do: encouraging and assisting.

◘ Procedural Matters:
- In practice, the indictment will read, whatever the nature of A’s participation, ‘A aided, abetted,
counseled or procured the commission of murder, theft, criminal damage, burglar and so on.
- Only in the cases of procure may it sometimes be necessary to specify the precise nature of the
participation.
- This is because one can procure someone to an offence although there was no common enterprise, as
where A adulterates P’s drink without P’s knowledge which causes them to be over the prescribed
alcohol limit when driving a car.
- A-G’s Reference No 1 of 1975 asserts how this will not be aiding and abetting or counseling the
offence, but it will be procuring it.
- To procure means to ‘produce by endeavor (attempt to achieve a goal etc/try hard to achieve)’.

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◘ Level of participation:
- The theory of derivative liability seems to require some contribution with the principal’s criminal
project.
- Thus, if Y, wishing to help W and T, but without their knowledge, comes to the scene of the crime at
the appointed time intending to help out if necessary, he will not be an accessory if his assistance is not
called upon. (Allan 1965 QBD)
- It would be different if he took upon himself the role of an unsponsored lookout, then he could be
termed an accessory.

• Complicity by omission and inactivity:

- In three circumstances a person may incur accessorial liability in the absence of any positive action:

A. D is present at scene of crime and the circumstances are as such to generate the inference that the
principal’s conduct is being approved:
- It would be unusual for the criminal law to vindicate a person’s right NOT to interfere to prevent a child
drowning in a puddle of water and yet punish a person for failing to intervene to prevent an attempt to
kill by drowning.
- One clear difference is present, however, between inactivity in the context of accessorial liability as
opposed to a person’s primary liability.
- In the former, a person’s unprotesting presence at the crime scene is capable of offering support to the
principal offender.
- Include this for bonus: Surely, spectacting is more encouraging than walking off, could this difference
reasonably support legislating a ‘duty to leave’ or not willfully attend the scene of a crime? As
speculated by Devlin J in Wilcox v Jeffrey.

• Coney:
- One area where it is easy to construe presence at the scene of a crime as offering
encouragement/assistance is in the case of spectators at illegal public performances.
- Here the mere presence of spectators at an illegal prize fight was thought to be prima facie evidence
(fact presumed to be true, unless disproved, meaning jury can indict upon this sort of evidence) upon
which the jury might find encouragement.
- In this sense, the jury might find indictment whether an individual spectator joined in the applause or
not.

• Wilcox v Jeffrey:
-A music critic met a saxophonist, a foreign national, on his arrival in Britain. He subsequently attended
and paid for a ticket to a performance given by the saxophonist which was in breach of the Aliens Order
Act 1920.
- He was held to have aided and abetted the offence.

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- One thing to note is that the line to draw between accessoryship (Wilcox) and simple bad citizenship is
indeed difficult to draw.
- One solution could be to punish for the latter, rather than leaving it to the unaided inferences of the
jury to misjudge the innocent into the deeds of the wicked. This could be done by imposing a duty to
inform the police upon witnessing the commission of an offence.

- Nevertheless, the common law has provided some aids and assistance to this problem.
- A person who happens upon and stays, or even goes out of his way to attend the scene of a crime, is
not providing encouragement.

• Clarence:
- Two soldiers entered a room to find other soldiers raping a woman. The two soldiers did nothing either
to stop the rape or to encourage its continuance but stood silently and watched.
- COA quashed their conviction for aiding and abetting rape, deciding the question of liability purely on
the basis of mens rea.
- The court held how what was of importance was the fact that their unprotesting presence offered
some encouragement to their comrades and how they intended their presence to do as such.

- The major obstacle to criminalizing the behavior of the soldiers is the fact that their acts were not more
reprehensible than if they had simply walked out or watched the rape of an anonymous woman from
the comfort of their own bedroom window.

• Bland:
- This is another case where inactivity has been held insufficient, in which it was held that a woman who
shared a room with a man whom she knew to be dealing in drugs was not an accessory unless she
assited or encouraged him to do so.

• Smith v Baker:
- Here, it was held that a person who took a lift with a person whom he discovered to be uninsured was
not complicity in the offence of driving without insurance by not removing himself from the car upon
making the discovery.

• Alan:
- Here a person who was present at an affray (public fights of more than one person) who did nothing to
encourage it but intended to join in if the need arose was not thereby rendered an accessory to the
affray.

- In each case the question at issue was whether there was conduct:
i. amounting to encouragement or assistance;
ii. accompanied by an intention to encourage or assist.

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B. Where the party is placed under a legal duty to prevent the commission of the offence:
- The basis upon which a person may be liable as principal for omitting to prevent harm is breach of
duty, whether impoed by law or voluntarily assumed.
- Accessorial liability may occur in similar ways.
- A person who omits, in breach of parental duty, to prevent another harming her child is liable as an
accessory for any crime committed by that person against the child. (Marsh and another v Hodgson).
- A store detective who turns a blind eye to a theft by a customer is complicit in theft.

C. Irrespective of whether secondary part wishes to encourage the crime/not, the party has a legal
power to prevent the commission of the offence and fails to do so:
- A duty of intervention may arise where a secondary party has the right to control the behavior of
another.

• In Tuck v Robson:
- In this case, a publican (someone who retains control over taxes) was held liable for aiding and abetting
breach of the licensing laws by his patrons (people who financially support organizations) by not
ensuring that they left the premises at the end of closing time.

- There are three standard cases when a right of control becomes a duty to control:
i. where the secondary party has ownership/control of property used by the principal:

• Rubie v Faulkner:
- It was held that the statutory requirement in the cases of a learner driver that a qualified driver should
be on hand to supervise was held to give rise to an implicit duty on part of the instructor or qualified
driver to take reasonable steps to ensure the leaner drives safely and carefully.

• Du Cros v Lambourne:
- The owner of a car who sat as the passenger was convicted of abetting dangerous driving even though
there was no evidence of positive encouragement.

• Harris:
- Here, the liability was extended to accessoryship in the offence of causing death by dangerous driving.

- It has been submitted that these are correct decision, the car owner has the power to control the way
the driver drives. He can tell him to drive carefully or not at all.

ii. where the secondary party stands in the relationship of employer and the principal is
employee/independent contractor.
iii. where the secondary party has ownership/control of premises used by the principal.

- Each of the above cases can be accounted for on the ground that the secondary party’s failure to
exercise the power of control amounts to encouragement/assistance.

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- Householders, unlike publicans who must comply with the terms of their licence, are not an
embodiment of the law and it would be inappropriate to expect them to police their home as if they
were one.
- Cassady v Reg Morris Transport Ltd asserts how failing to prevent an offence is not always the same as
seeking to encourage it.
- In J.F Alford Transport Ltd, the COA said that such encouragement would result from turning a blind
eye knowing this would encourage the continuance of the practice.

◘ Communication and causation:

- If the basis upon which A is charged is an act of encouragement, this has to be communicated to the
principal. If, therefore, P does not hear or read the words of encouragement, A cannot be charged as an
accessory on the basis of that act alone.

- If the basis upon which A is charged is an act of assistance, this does not have to be communicated to
the principal. A person who acts as a lookout while others commits an offence is guilty of assisting
although none of the principals knew of their action. (State v Tally).
- Again, there need be no causal link.

• R v Giannetto:
- Saying ‘Oh, goody’ in response to a proposal to kill is sufficient encouragement.

- Similarly, supplying a pair of gloves to help prevent fingerprint identification is sufficient assistance.

- Causation is only to be required where accessoryship takes the form of procuring the commission of an
offence. Procure is synonymous with cause.

• In Attorney General’s Reference (No.1 of 1975):

- It was held that spiking someone’s drink procured the drink-driving offence when the victim drove
home not knowing of his drunken condition.
- The essence of procuring was held to be to produce by endeavor; meaning to cause the offence to be
committed.

- A thumb rule for knowing why only cases of procuring require causation and not assistance etc is
illustrated by an example. For instance, if one assists a burglary by providing a gun, it cannot be argued
that but for the assistance of the person providing the gun, the burglarly would have not occurred.

• Calhaem:
- This case is generally thought to support this view.
- Here, a woman hired a hitman to kill another woman had her conviction upheld on appeal, although
there was evidence that the hitman may have killed on his own account rather than because of the
woman’s procurement.
- Her appeal was based on the basis that counseling required proof of a substantial causal link between

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her actions and the commission of the offence, which was absent here.
- This argument was rejected as Parker LJ stated how there was some connection between the counsel
of the D and the act done.
- The facts of the crime indicate a causal connected. The crime was ‘set up’ by W. The hitman would
never have met, let alone killed the victim, unless he had been asked to kill her.

6. Mens Rea:
- It was described by Devlin J in NCB v Gamble: ‘aiding or abetting is a crime that requires proof of
mens rea, that is of intention to aid (or encourage) as well as knowledge of the circumstances’ which
meant that A’s acts of assistance or encouragement should be given with a view to encouraging or
assisting the commission of an offence, and the aider/encourager should know the nature of the offence
to be committed.
- We will fragment the definition into two portions:

• Intention to assist/aid or encourage:

- The issue here arises that in our daily lives, many acts constitute as help or encouragement to potential
crimes. For instance, magazine articles about detailed accounts of a bank robbery may serve as a form of
aid/encouragement for a bank robber. Others may offer alcoholic drinks to dinner guest, whose only
means of getting home is by driving a car. Do these activites constitute criminal intention?
- By intention, does the prosecution have to show that A knew that their acts would assist/encourage P
to commit an offence? Is it enough to show simply that A knew their acts might assist/encourage P to
commit an offence?
- Or does it have to show that A acted in order to encourage/assist its commission.

• In NCB v Gamble:
- Devlin favoured the former approach.
- Here he gave the example of how one man may deliberately sell to another a gun to be used for
murdering a third, the seller may be indifferent whether the third man lives/dies and is only interestd in
the cash profit to be made out of the sale, but he can still be a aider and abetter. This indicates how the
prosecution only has to show that A knew that their acts would assist/encourage P to commit an
offence.

• In J.F. Alford Transport Ltd:

- The COA asserted how what mattered was knowledge of the principal offence, coupled with the ability
to control the action of the offender and the deliberate decision to refrain from doing so.
- The COA said that proof of these things entitled the jury, in the absence of any alternative explanation
to infer that… the company, was positively encouraging what was going on.
- Although the appeal was allowed on the basis of insufficient evidence as to the employers knowing
about what was going on, the importance of this restatement of the mens rea requirement is twofold:

i. It indicates that A knows, rather than simply suspects, that their conduct will assist/encourage the
commission of an offence.

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ii. Restatement is consistent with the principle laid down in Moloney, and upheld in Woollin, that acting
in the knowledge that a particular consequence will follow from one’s act is evidence that the
consequence was intended but not intention as a matter of law.
- However, where there is an alternative explanation, it gives the jury some discretion not to infer an
intention to assist/encourage.

• An example of this can be seen in Gillick:

- HOL made clear that a doctor who gave contraceptive advice to an underage girl was not to be taken to
have intended to assist/encourage the commission of unlawful sexual intercourse by virtue only of
knowing that it would for certain have this effect.
- The alternative explanation provided by the HOL was that the doctor was simply doing his medical duty
of preventing an unwanted pregnancy.

• Knowledge of the circumstances:

- Clearly a person cannot be held responsible for assisting/encouraging the commission of an offence
unless they know what they are doing will have this effect.

• In Johnson v Youden:
- it was asserted how before a person can be convicted of aiding and abetting the commission of an
offence, he must at least know the essential matters which constitute that offence.
- There are three facets to this principle:
i. A is not responsible unless they know that P’s intentions are criminal and the circumstances which
would make it so.
ii. A is not responsible if P commits a crime other than the crime to which support is lent.
iii. A is not responsible, although they know their acts will assist/encourage P to commit some kind of
crime, unless they have a good idea of what crime P intends to commit.

• How much detail need the accessory know?

- Johnson v Youden says that the accessory needs to know the ‘essential elements of the offence’.
- In other words, this means the essential elements which will constitute the criminal offence.
- Roberts and George holds how liability as an accessory requires it to be established that the accused
knew of any relevant fact/circumstance necessary for the offence to be made out.
- The requirements of knowledge exist even with respect to crimes of negligence and strict liability
crimes. This may create unusual, if not perverse, distinctions of responsibility.

• In Callow v Tillstone:
- P was a butcher convicted of the strict liability offence of exposing unfit meat for sale.
- He had done so only on the authorization of A, a veterinary surgeon, who had negligently certified the
meat as sound.
- A’s conviction for aiding and abetting the butcher’s offence was quashed on the ground that he did
know the meat was unsound and so could not intend to assist P to commit the offence.
- Similarly, on a charge of aiding and abetting unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, an accessory

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cannot, unlike the principal, be guilty of the crime if he believed, however unreasonably, the victim to be
over the age of consent.

• In Carter v Richardson:
- The liability of the supervisor of a learned driver for abetting the offence of driving with excess alcohol
was said to turn on whether the former knew that it was probable that the latter was over the limit, that
he was Cunningham reckless.

- Unfortunately, it is not doctrinally clear whether the assister/encourager must know the recipient will
commit the offence or whether recklessness is sufficient.
- What of cases where D knows an offence is to be committed but does not know which one? Problems
are most likely to arise where A supplies tools/information for a crime, or some other form of secondary
assistance, but is ignorant, or mistaken as to some particular detail of the proposed venture.
- In principal, liability depends upon A having actual knowledge rather than mere suspicion.

• Bainbridge:
-A supplied oxyacetylene equipment to P.
- It was used to break into a branch of the Midland Bank.
- A was convicted of an accessory and appealed on the grounds that he did not know the details of the
intended illegal use of the equipment.
- It was held that while it would not be enough simply to know that the equipment was to be used in
some illegal venture, it was enough to know that an offence of the type in question was intended.
- As long as A contemplated that the equipment was to be used for the purpose of breaking into a
building and stealing, this would be enough.

- However the principles established by Bainbridge raise doubts. If A helps B to enter V’s house for
burglarious purposes, will A be liable for burglary or will he also be liable for the rape B commits upon V,
since he ‘knew the type of offence to be committed’?

• Maxwell:
- This casted even further doubts to the principles established above.
- A was a member of a terrorist organization who was gien the job of driving a car for the purpose of
guiding other terrorists in a second car to an inn where they were to perpetrate an offence.
- He knew that the car would contain weapons and that some/all of the weapons would be used in the
course of an attack involving the inn.
- He did not know whether the weapons to be used were to be bombs or guns, whether the attack was
to be on the inn or the people in it etc…
- He did not know the type of offence to be committed.
- The attack was by means of a pipe bomb thrown into the inn.
- He was convicted of an accessory to an offence under the Explosive Substances Act 1883.
- The HOL upheld his conviction ruling that where an accessory leaves it to his principal to choose which
of a number of offences to commit, he is liable provided the choice is made from the range of offences

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from which the accessory contemplates the choice will be made.

In short, Bainbridge and Maxwell allowed the conviction of an accessory where:

a. He knows the type of offence to be committed, but does not know the details: time, place etc
b. He does not know the type of offence, but does know that the offence in questions is on P’s shopping
list of possible crimes.

- In practice however, few assisters/encouragers have ‘no idea’. This is why the principle established by
both these cases is to significantly reduce the power of the secondary party to claim that they should
not be held accountable because they did not know the essential elements of the offence to be
committed.

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