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Unreliable Evidence

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Factual: Crime & Justice

Series exploring and analysing the legal issues of the day

Unreliable Evidence: Joint Enterprise

04/04/2012

Joint Enterprise

BBC Radio 4 - Unreliable Evidence, Joint Enterprise

Clive Anderson and guests discuss the controversial law of joint enterprise.

Clive Anderson and top legal experts discuss concerns that the law of joint enterprise is causing miscarriages of justice.

In the first of a new series, Clive Anderson and guests discuss the controversial law of joint enterprise under which people can be convicted of murder even if they didn't physically participate in an assault or strike the fatal blow.

Francis Fitzgibbon QC, who has defended people in joint enterprise cases, argues that this complex and unwieldy law is being applied indiscriminately to combat gang violence, and is leading to miscarriages of justice.

Solicitor Simon Natas calls for the law to be changed to make it necessary to prove that a defendant intended that someone should be killed or seriously injured.

But Mark Heywood QC who has prosecuted in the trials of people accused of murder following the death of a young man during a knife attack by a gang in Victoria Station, defends the way joint enterprise law is currently being applied.


Producer: Brian King
An Above The Title production for BBC Radio 4.

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