Case Dismissed Assisting An Offender Murder Central Criminal Court 2024

No Case to Answer – Assisting an Offender to Commit Murder – Central Criminal Court 2024

Our Client was one of seven defendants involved in a murder trial at the Old Bailey. Although he was not alleged to have committed the murder himself, he was charged with Assisting an Offender to Commit Murder contrary to section 4(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1967 for allegedly assisting the murderers after the incident had happened.

The case related to two separate incidents, both involving shooting, but which took place on different occasions and targeted different victims. On the first occasion, the victim survived. However, on the second occasion, the victim died instantly at the scene. The first three defendants in this case were indicted with both murder and attempted murder.

Our client was charged for his alleged involvement in the second incident where the victim died. The Crown alleged that our client had assisted the first three defendants after they had murdered the second victim by trying to impede the investigation as to their identity. Specifically, it was alleged he and one other defendant bought clothes for the alleged murderers to change into straight after the murder was committed.  Our client and his co-accused then wore the clothes worn by the alleged murderers during the incident.

Our client’s instructions were that he had no knowledge of or involvement in the incident whatsoever. As such, our client could not have had any intention to impede the murder investigation by assisting the first three defendants in hiding their identities.

At the end of the Crown’s case, our in-house counsel Tammy Sher made a half-time submission of no case to answer. This is essentially an argument that there was insufficient evidence to support a case against our client. This application was successful and our client was therefore acquitted mid-way through the trial, without having to put forward any defence case.