Accessory after the facr

Question 1

Accessory after the fact
Section 
Act 
Penalty 
Ingredients

Answer 1

Section: 71(1)
Act: Crimes Act 1961
Penalty: Under 10 years = 1/2 penalty
10 years or more = 5 years
Life imprisonment = 7 years max

Ingredients

1. Knowing any person to be a party to an offence
2. Receives, comforts or assists that person OR tampers with or actively suppresses any evidence against him
3. In order to help him to escape after arrest OR to avoid arrest or conviction

Question 2

Ingredients - definitions and case law

Knowing any person to be a party to an offence

Answer 2

1. knowing
2. Knowledge
3. R V Crooks
4. R V Briggs
5. Person
6. Party
7. offence
8. defence

Question 3

Ingredients - definitions and case law

Receives, comforts or assists that person OR tampers with or actively suppresses any evidence against him

Answer 3

1. Receives, comforts or assists OR tampers with or actively suppresses any evidence

Question 4

Ingredients - definitions and case law

In order to help him to escape after arrest OR to avoid arrest or conviction

Answer 4

1. R V Mane
2. The act must have specifically…..

OR

1. Evades justice

Question 5

Knowing

Answer 5

the accused must have knowledge that the person that they are being an accessory to was party to an offence at the time of assisting them

Question 6

knowledge

Answer 6

Knowing means knowing or correctly believing
Simester and Brookbanks
The defendant may believe something wrongly, but cannot know something that is false

Question 7

Person

Answer 7

Gender neutral, proven by judicial notice or circumstantially

Question 8

party

Answer 8

Defined as being anyone who
- commits the offence
- does or omits an act for the purpose of aiding any person to commit the offence
- abets any person in the commission of the offence
- incites, counsels or procures any person to commit the offence
Section 66(1), Crimes Act 1961

Question 9

offence

Answer 9

An act or omission that is punishable that is punishable on conviction under any enactment and demarcated into four categories

Question 10

Challenge (to accessory after the fact)

Answer 10

A person charged with being an accessory after the fact is entitled to insist on proof of the principle crime and to challenge the evidence of it even if the principle offender has pleaded guilty

Question 11

Receives/comforts or assists

Answer 11

the accused does a deliberate act for the purpose of assisting the person to evade justice. the act done must actually help the person in some way

Question 12

tampers with/actively suppresses evidence

Answer 12

must do a deliberate act in relation to evidence against the offender for the purpose of assisting the person to evade justice. the act must actually help the person

Question 13

the act must have specifically….

Answer 13

the act must have specifically assisted the offender after they had been arrested

Question 14

evade justice

Answer 14

All acts must be done by accused with the express intention that the person evades justice either by avoiding arrest or conviction

Question 15

R V Mane

Answer 15

To be considered an accessory the acts done by the person must be after the completion of the offence

Question 16

R V Briggs

Answer 16

Knowledge may also be inferred from willful blindness or a deliberate abstention from making inquiries that would confirm the suspected truth

Question 17

R V Crooks

Answer 17

Knowledge means actual knowledge or belief in the sense of having no real doubt that the person assisted was a party to the relevant offence