Joint Enterprises (05/01/15)
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| Gary Dobson and David Norris I was interested in a recent article from The Independent which reports that MPs at Westminster are concerned that criminals convicted under the law of joint enterprise may have been harshly treated in the sense that if they didn't actually wield the knife then, possibly, they should be considered guilty of a lesser crime than murder.
Now while I can follow this argument, in some circumstances at least, I have to say I think it's a whole old of old bollix because the murderers of Stephen Lawrence, for example, acted as a racist gang, egging one another on, effectively acting as a pack.
So the significance of who did what exactly is much less important than the fact that without this empowering gang or pack mentality, the crime would never have been committed in the first place.
Gary Dobson and David Norris have been sent to prison for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, but have always maintained their innocence and have refused to implicate other members of their gang who remain free to this day.
If you ask me the law of joint enterprise is a good one and far from rowing back on its impact on criminals, I would be firmly in favour of extending the principle into other areas of the criminal justice and civil legal system.
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