A controversial law used to convict ten teenagers of murder following a savage gang attack that left an 18-year-old mortally wounded will be tested by senior judges if the case goes to appeal.
Jack Woodley’s killers, who were all aged 14 to 17 at the time of the attack last October, were found guilty under ‘joint enterprise’ legislation, but nine of them are seeking to get their convictions quashed.
The law states a defendant is guilty if they intended to encourage, or assisted the person, in this case the 15-year-old boy who stabbed Jack, who committed the offence.
Read more: Mums of Jack Woodley and Connor Brown write to Liz Truss demanding meeting over knife crime
Unanimous guilty verdicts were returned after a three-month trial at Newcastle Crown Court heard how they all took part in punching, kicking and stamping on Jack before he was fatally stabbed with a ten-inch survival knife.
A ruling is yet to be made on whether an appeal can go ahead, but if approved it could be heard within months and potentially see some of the convictions overturned.
Last night, the mother of a 17-year-old who was convicted of Jack’s murder said: “The boy with the knife should get manslaughter or murder and the rest of the boys should get what they deserve for their part in it.
“My son should be punished accordingly, maybe for affray, because I know he would never have wanted someone to die.
“If Jack had not died because he had been stabbed they would have all been punished accordingly and it would not have come to this.”
A new bill to give justice to those wrongly convicted under joint enterprise law has now cleared its first hurdle in Parliament.
Introducing his Criminal Appeal (Amendment) Bill, Labour MP Barry Sheerman told the Commons his proposed legislation would fix a “major flaw” in the justice system.
It is designed to address the injustice of joint enterprise by amending the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 to enable appeals, six years after the Supreme Court ruled that the law had taken “a wrong turn”.
Before 2016, a person could be found guilty by association if the court decided they could reasonably foresee the crime taking place, even if they themselves did not intend it.
In 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that this aspect of joint enterprise, parasitic accessorial liability (PAL), had been misapplied, meaning that people could no longer be prosecuted for the possibility of foreseeing a crime taking place, but only if they intended to assist in committing it.
The mother, who cannot be identified due to legal reasons, said: “I would support this new law all the way.
“It is wrong on every level. It is totally unfair. You can’t take ten kids’ lives and their youth because one person makes a bad choice and decision.
“I don’t understand it. They were not a gang. How can they have foreseen it?”
Families of the nine youths appealing their conviction are being supported by JENGbA (Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association), a group that campaigns on behalf of those convicted under joint enterprise law.
Human rights campaigners at Liberty are also currently taking legal action against the Crown Prosecution Service and the Ministry of Justice over the law.
A recent report by the House of Commons justice select committee pointed out a large proportion of those convicted in gang-related killings have been young, black and mixed-race men.
High profile joint enterprise cases include convictions against the killers of Stephen Lawrence, who was stabbed to death in a racist attack in south London in 1993, and Ben Kinsella, who was stabbed in north London in 2008.
The report says both cases are ‘widely referred to as examples where the use of the doctrine of joint enterprise has secured convictions which have met with widespread public approval and support’, as has the conviction of the ten youths found guilty of Jack Woodley’s murder.
Jack’s mother Zoey McGill said: “I think it is so important that the law stays the way it is.
“If not, it gives young people the message that it is okay to hang around with someone who carries a knife, and that it is okay to assist an offender as long as you don’t deliver that fatal blow.
“The message has to go out there that if you hang around with someone who thinks that it is acceptable to take a life with a knife then you are going to be as much to blame as the offender.”
The Bill, introduced as a Ten Minute Rule Motion, is unlikely to become law without Government support and is due to receive its second reading on January 20 next year.
Zoey said: “That boy would not have stabbed Jack had he not had his friend holding Jack down, kicking him and punching him.
“When parents say: ‘My son did not kill him’ I say: ‘But your son held him by his arms and your son jumped on his back and broke it in three places’.
“You can still die of those injuries.
“They say ‘yeah, they beat him up, but they are not responsible for his death’.
“Of course they are. Of course they are responsible.”
Read next:
- Powerful video shows County Durham mum singing to her murdered son on death bed
- Mum of murdered Aycliffe teen shares her feelings as Houghton Feast returns
- Aycliffe mum of Jack Woodley is 'heartbroken' after Tomasz Oleszak stabbing
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