#17481 - Criminal Liability Inchoate Offences Conspiracy - Criminal Liability

CONSPIRACY Rationale: • • • • What a group of people can achieve as opposed to an individual person in relation to the same crime. But what about the difficulty also? Escape mainly and inconvenience The difference between conspiracy and the other two, Is that• • Conspiracy can be attached to mere civil wrongs as well as crimes Conspiracy is a crime in itself, meaning it renders a civil wrong, a criminal wrong. 2 main features: 1. Agreement - mens rea, actus reus considered 2. The unlawful activity that the conspiracy relates to, the objects or goals of the conspiracy. STATUTE: Part 7 of the criminal justice act 2006 ➢ • • • Conspiracy to commit a serious offence (carries four years or more) Just placing some common law on statutory footing. No definition of conspire Leaving it to judicial discretion Criminal Justice Amendment act ➢ Criminalises 'criminal organisations' assisting, directing, and participating in a conspiracy attaching to specific offences. • There is a distinction between criminal organisation conspirers and conspiracies in the sense of a group of people forming a conspiratorial agreement R v MeyrickDifficult ACTUS REUS Mulcahy v The Queen 1868'Agreement of two or more to do an unlawful act, or to do a lawful act by unlawful means' LRC; • Definition of conspiracy should be codified