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Conspiracy (Actus Reus (Agreement to commit the wrongful act, No need for…
Conspiracy
Actus Reus
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No need for definite plan to have been drawn up for commission of the offence
-People (AG) v Keane: Parties need not even have met
What is needed is conscious understanding of a common design
- R v Orton
- The parties o the conspriacy are pursuing the same unlawful purpose in combination
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Mens Rea
Two Fold
- An intention to agree to commit an unlawful act
- An intention that the person entering into the agreement take some part in its furtherance (R v Anderson)
If one party acquitted, does not automatically follow the other parties will be treated similarly
Australian case: R v Darby:
- HC ruled that this would only happen if a conviction for one accused would be entirely inconsistent with the acquittal of the other
- Codified in s5 UK Criminal Law Act 1977
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Definition
R v Parnell:A combination of persons doing a wrongful act to injure another, even though the wrong may be no more than a civil wrong
Connelly v Lochney and McCarthy: Agreement to carry out an unlawful object or to carry out a lawful object by unlawful means
Defences
Impossibility
- Common sense that if thedefinition of conspiracy revolves around unlawful acts, there cannot be a conspiracy to do something lawful
- If accused persons cannot complete their stated aim this should be irrelevant given the offence is complete on agreement
Impossibility recognised in UK
HOWEVER- H of L ruled that this is not the case
DPP v Nock: Accused conspired to manufacture cocain but ingredients which they used meant they could not do so
- Convictions quashed on basis of impossibility
NEW ZEALAND:Sew v Hoy: This approach NOT followed- the offence is complete when the agreement is made.
- not prosecuted on guilty intention alone but have gone further in making their agreement
CANADA: Nock approach rejected
- Since the offence of conspiracy only requires an intention to commit the substantive offence and not the commission of the offence itself, it doe snot matter that from an objective POV the commission of the offence may be impossible
- It is the subjective POV that is important
- the fact that they cannot from objective circumstances is not as they believe it to be does not in any way affect intention
Common Law
- Impossible for spouses to conspure with one another as they were viewed as one person
- Removal of spousal protection in other areas of the criminal law, it must be doubted whether rule still survives
71.—(1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3), a person who conspires, whether in the State or elsewhere, with one or more persons to do an act
(a) in the State that constitutes a serious offence, or
(b) in a place outside the State that constitutes a serious offence under the law of that place and which would, if done in the State, constitute a serious offence,
is guilty of an offence irrespective of whether such act actually takes place or not.
- Does not repeal conspiracy at common law