We are taking legal action against the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over discrimination in joint enterprise prosecutions. Please donate to make it possible!

The law on joint enterprise has led to bystanders or people involved in much lesser criminal offences being convicted of manslaughter and murder – even when they did not play a decisive role in the crime.

Academic studies show that joint enterprise is used overwhelmingly against people from poor and minoritised communities, particularly young Black men.

Despite this, the CPS does not record or monitor the race, age, sex or gender of the people they prosecute under joint enterprise law, so there is no official data showing the full extent of the discrimination.

There should be no place for discrimination to hide in our criminal justice system. 

Please support our legal challenge. 

What is joint enterprise?

If one or more people commit an offence (the main offenders) and another/others (secondary offenders) intended to encourage or assist them to commit the offence, the secondary offender(s) can be prosecuted under joint enterprise law as if they were a main offender.

What’s the problem with joint enterprise?

Thousands of people are estimated to have been prosecuted under the joint enterprise doctrine. Convictions are often based on prejudicial evidence, potentially inaccurate information, or racist stereotypes.

Whole groups have been convicted of a crime committed by one person based on prejudicial evidence they are in a ‘gang’, particularly in cases brought against people of colour. ‘Evidence’ of gang membership may include information about people’s associations, friends, families, use of social media, and even music preferences.

This relies on racist and inaccurate stereotypes about young people of colour being involved in violence and other criminal activities.

In 2016, the Supreme Court found that the law on joint enterprise had been misapplied for over thirty years. However, despite high hopes, this has not resulted in a reduction in joint enterprise prosecutions, and only one conviction has been overturned.

Our challenge

Liberty is acting on behalf of JENGbA (Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association), a grassroots campaign group that supports approximately 1,400 people who have been convicted under the joint enterprise doctrine, as well as their loved ones. Most of those convicted are serving life sentences.

Research has shown that more than half of young male prisoners serving 15 years or more for joint enterprise offences are Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic – despite less than 6% of the population being from these backgrounds.

Yet the CPS admitted in a letter to Liberty that they do not record or monitor how the doctrine of joint enterprise is used and who it is used against.

This means that systemic racism and other types of discrimination are going unrecorded, making it difficult for people to challenge and hold the state to account.

As a result, the criminal justice system has been recklessly and unjustly sweeping thousands of young people, in particular young black men and boys, into prison.

We will argue in Court that, by failing to record this data, the CPS are breaching their duties under the Equality Act 2010 to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination and advance equality of opportunity. There is no way they can comply with these duties if they don’t even know the nature and full extent of the discrimination.

The CPS deny they have a duty to do this and intend to defend JENGbA’s claim.

The discriminatory use of joint enterprise must no longer be hidden from view. Please support our legal challenge. 

Stories of injustice under joint enterprise law

Sheena’s son, Kyefer, was 14 when he was convicted of murder under joint enterprise. He was present when a 19-year old boy stabbed another in the leg following a fight, leaving him with fatal wounds. Although Sheena’s son didn’t stab the boy, he and three friends were all also given life sentences. He has now been in prison for eight years.

Sheena said: “The police tried to say it was a revenge killing or a postcode thing, as Kyefer was stabbed six weeks before. But in reality the police had the name of the person who stabbed Kyefer, and he was a local lad who lived in the same postcode! Kyefer has always looked a lot older than he is, towering over his peers from a young age, so he was treated during the whole trial as if he were an adult – not just 14 years of age. To date, Kyefer has spent one birthday and one Christmas out of eight in solitary confinement.”

Les’s grandson, Sebastian, was 18 when he was involved in a fight after a night out with a group of young men he barely knew. When a young man was killed, Sebastian – along with five others – was convicted of murder, with a minimum sentence of 17 years.

Les said: “It’s devastated this family. The whole family has suffered. It doesn’t seem like justice – it seems like retribution. If he’d done what they accused him of, I could live with it. But he didn’t.”

We need your help

We urgently need to raise £3,000 to protect JENGbA from liability for the CPS’s legal costs when their case goes to Court. Without these funds we won’t be able to take our case forward so please donate what you can and share our CrowdJustice page on social media and with friends and family.

Thank you so much for your support.