R v Anderson
A person can be guilty of conspiracy if he agrees to play some part in a criminal plan, even if he does not intend the offence to be committed.
Facts
Mr Anderson was in prison awaiting trial. He agreed with a fellow prisoner, for a payment of £20,000, to supply diamond wire to cut through prison bars to help another prisoner escape. He received £2,000 in advance, but was injured in a car accident and took no further part. He was charged with conspiracy to effect the escape of a prisoner. He said that he had never intended the escape plan to be carried out, and had only intended to supply the wire and take the money.
Legal principle
The House of Lords upheld the conviction. Lord Bridge said that, beyond the mere fact of agreement, the necessary mental element of the offence of conspiracy is established if, and only if, it is shown that the accused, when he entered into the agreement, intended to play some part in the agreed course of conduct in furtherance of the criminal purpose which the agreed course of conduct was intended to achieve. It was not necessary to prove that he intended the offence to be committed. His statement that the defendant must intend to play a part has been criticised, and has been interpreted narrowly in later cases.
Related cases on inchoate offences and accessorial liability
- Attorney General's Reference (No 1 of 1975) [1975] QB 773
- Attorney General's Reference (No 1 of 1992) [1993] 1 WLR 274
- DPP for Northern Ireland v Maxwell [1978] 1 WLR 1350
- Haughton v Smith [1975] AC 476
- National Coal Board v Gamble [1959] 1 QB 11
- R v Bainbridge [1960] 1 QB 129
- R v Becerra and Cooper (1975) 62 Cr App R 212
- R v Campbell (1991) 93 Cr App R 350
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