Criminal Law Act 1977

خلاصہ

The Criminal Law Act 1977 made two distinct and significant contributions to English criminal law. Part I codified the law of criminal conspiracy, replacing the broad and uncertain common law offence of conspiracy (save for common law conspiracy to defraud, which was preserved by s.5(2)) with a statutory definition. Section 1(1) provides that a person is guilty of statutory conspiracy if he agrees with any other person or persons that a course of conduct shall be pursued which, if the agreement is carried out in accordance with their intentions, either will necessarily amount to or involve the commission of any offence or offences by one or more of the parties, or would do so but for the existence of facts which render the commission of the offence or any of the offences impossible. The statutory conspiracy offence therefore requires (a) an agreement; (b) that the agreed course of conduct will necessarily involve the commission of an offence; and (c) that the conspirators intend the offence to be committed. Unlike the common law, the statutory offence requires proof that both parties intended to carry out the agreement. The Act also contains important limits on who can conspire: a person cannot be convicted of conspiracy with their spouse or civil partner alone (s.2(2)(a)), nor with a person under the age of criminal responsibility (s.2(2)(b)). Part II of the Act created a series of offences relating to entering and remaining on property, including using violence to secure entry to premises (s.6) and adverse occupation of residential premises (s.7). Many of the trespass offences in Part II were subsequently superseded or strengthened by later legislation.

اہم نکات

• Statutory conspiracy (s.1(1)) — an agreement between two or more persons to pursue a course of conduct that will necessarily amount to or involve the commission of an offence by one or more of the parties, or would do so but for facts making commission impossible; the statutory offence requires intention by each conspirator that the full offence shall be committed
• Intention requirement — both parties to the agreement must intend the offence to be committed and must intend to play their part in the agreed course of conduct; mere knowledge that the co-conspirator will commit an offence is insufficient: R v Anderson [1986] AC 27 (though subsequently limited in R v Yip Chiu-Cheung [1995] 1 AC 111)
• Preservation of conspiracy to defraud (s.5(2)) — the common law offence of conspiracy to defraud is not abolished; it catches agreements to dishonestly deprive another of property or to injure proprietary rights without necessarily involving any specific statutory offence; the overlap between the two regimes has been subject to considerable case law
• Exemptions from conspiracy (s.2) — a person who agrees with their spouse or civil partner alone cannot be convicted of statutory conspiracy; a person who agrees with a child under the age of criminal responsibility alone cannot be convicted; nor can a person who is the intended victim of the offence
• Sentence for conspiracy — a conspiracy to commit a summary offence is triable summarily; a conspiracy to commit an indictable offence is triable only on indictment; the maximum sentence matches the maximum for the substantive offence unless the offence carries a fixed penalty or the offence is an indictable-only offence in which case the maximum is life imprisonment
• Using violence to secure entry (s.6) — a person who, without lawful authority, uses or threatens violence for the purpose of securing entry into premises is guilty of an offence; it is a defence that the person using violence believed that the other person was a trespasser and had an immediate right to enter
• Adverse occupation of residential premises (s.7) — a person who is on any premises as a trespasser after having entered as such is guilty of an offence if he fails to leave on being required to do so by a displaced residential occupier or protected intending occupier; replaced in part by LASPO 2012 s.144
• Criminal law reform context — the Act was enacted following the Law Commission Report on Conspiracy and Criminal Law Reform (Law Com No 76, 1976); it left conspiracy to defraud and several common law inchoate offences unreformed pending further consideration

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