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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent

Joint enterprise ruling has not led to fewer homicide charges, report finds

Members of the campaign group Jengba – Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association – at a demonstration in Parliament Square in July 2021.
Members of the campaign group Jengba – Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association – at a demonstration in Parliament Square in July 2021. Jengba partnered with CCJS on the new report. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

A landmark UK judgment that was expected to lead to a reduction in joint enterprise prosecutions and convictions for homicide has had no discernible effect, while the number of Black people convicted of murder under the controversial doctrine has risen, research suggests.

A 2016 ruling by the supreme court in relation to joint enterprise – where two or more defendants are accused of the same crime in relation to the same incident – found the law had been wrongly applied for more than 30 years and the bar had been set too low with respect to the required intent of any secondary co-accused.

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