Complicity

R v Bryce (2004) - the defendant argued that his involvement in the murder of which he had been convicted had been secondary only. He was alleged to have transported the killer and the gun which he had used to commit the murder to a caravan near the victim's house so that the killer could wait for an opportunity to carry out the killing. The appellant's case was that he knew nothing of the gun or the plan to murder the victim. He had simply given the eventual killer a lift. He did not give evidence. At the time of the assistance, the killer, on his own evidence, had had reservations about carrying out the killing, although he had not expressed these reservations to anyone. HIs resolve to do so was strengthened by a subsequent visit from the person who instigated the crime. The trial judge directed the jury that the appellant would be guilty as an accessory if he deliberately assisted the killer by taking him to the caravan with the gun, knowing that this was in order to assist the killer to kill or cause really serious injury to the victim, or realising that there was a real possibility that he might do so. The fact that the killer had not reached a final decision, in his own mind, whether to go through with the murder was no defence. It was submitted on appeal against conviction that the case should have been withdrawn from the jury in the absence of evidence that, at the time of the assistance, the principal offender had formed the intent to commit the offence. The submission was rejected, and the court held that all that was necessary in the secondary party was foresight of the real possibility that an offence would be committed by the principal. The prosecution had to prove intentional assistance. They must prove that an act done by the appellant in fact assisted the later commission of the offence, an act which the appellant did deliberately, realising that it was capable of assisting the offence; and that at the time of doing the act, the appellant contemplated the commission of the offence, that is he foresaw it as a 'real or substantial' risk or 'real possibility'.

Tuck v Robinson (1970) - the accessory (a pub landlord) aided and abetted when he permitted customers to continue drinking after the licensing hours. 

R v Clarkson (1971) - the accessory's mere presence at the scene of a crime, where there was no duty to prevent the crime, was not aiding. There has to be evidence of assistance or encouragement (and an intention that the accessory's act would assist or encourage). 

R v Stringer (2011) - convictions for murder as secondary participants were upheld in relation to two defendants who, together with the principal offender, had chased a man before he was fatally stabbed by the principal offender. Their conduct in chasing the victim amounted to conduct assisting and encouraging the principal offender. The…