Criminal - Seminar 12 - Secondary Participation - FT205 by Claire Turner

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claire43 — 2026-01-12 20:15:34 UTC

claire43 — 2026-01-12 20:15:39 UTC

John and Richard have a dispute with one of their school peers: Ralphie. The dispute has spread to social media, with each posting provocative stories on Instagram and videos on TikTok. Yesterday, Ralphie made a particularly hurtful remark about John’s mother in a TikTok video, which was viewed by many people in their school year (including John and Richard). John and Richard agree to ‘teach him a lesson’ and meet at the park. Richard steals a knife from his parents’ kitchen drawer and gives this to John, saying ‘this should give him a scare!’ They then find Ralphie, on his own. John taunts and threatens Ralphie with the knife, saying ‘you aren’t so brave now huh?’. Richard shouts ‘yeh, we can cut you up!’ John then stabs Ralphie multiple times, killing him. As Ralphie collapses to the ground, Richard is horrified and scared. He runs away, leaving John with the knife and covered in blood. John is arrested at the scene and charged with murder. Richard is arrested later and charged with murder, as an accessory.

Discuss Richard’s criminal liability for murder, as an accessory

claire43 — 2026-01-14 12:44:49 UTC

Step 1 - Principal offence - murder

Intention to kill or cause gbh (Moloney)

Step 2 - AR

Aid - given John the knife (Brown)

Abet - At the scene he has shouted 'yeh we can cut you up' (Gianetto)

Counsel - agreed a plan 'teach him a lesson' (Calhaem(

Procure - provided knife which caused the murder (AG Ref No. 1 1075)

Step 3 - inward MR

Intentionally supplied the knife and shouted the words

Step 4 - outward MR

Prosecution - Test is either aim or purpose for John to murder Ralphie (Mohan) or that it was virtually certain that would happen which he appreciated (Woollin)

Only intention will suffice and not recklessness (Jogee)

handed him the knife
words used that he would cut him up.
taunting
Present at the scene - chosen to go with John.

Defence

Intention to scare as discussed by their plan to 'teach him a lesson'. If you are dead you won't learn a lesson!
Ran away and was 'horrified and scared'
They are both children and so it was a school prank.

Burden of proof - beyond reasonable doubt that Ralphie would be murdered or suffer gbh as a virtual certainty which R appreciated.

Withdrawal? - Becerra - distinguished as the withdrawal needs to unequivocal before the commission of the crime.