Miah & Anor, R. v

Where the prosecution cannot prove that an accused personally joined a group assault, joint-enterprise liability for causing grievous bodily harm with intent requires evidence permitting an inference that the accused intended to support or encourage the perpetrators and intended that they cause grievous bodily harm with the requisite intent. Membership of a group and subsequent violence do not, without more, establish awareness before the attack of an intention to cause serious harm.

A conviction is unsafe where it rests on an alleged common agreement which the jury’s verdicts show it rejected, and no evidence distinguishes the convicted accused from acquitted group members.

Following an eight-day trial in the Crown Court at Middlesex Guildhall, Maruf Uddin and Faruk Miah were convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent. Alamin Miah was acquitted of that offence but convicted of the alternative count of violent disorder. The prosecution alleged a joint-enterprise attack by a group of youths upon Philip Bowden after they left a train at Shadwell station.

There was no identification evidence showing that Uddin or Alamin Miah personally participated in the attack. Their appeals challenged the judge’s refusal of submissions of no case to answer. The Court of Appeal allowed their appeals and quashed their convictions; Faruk Miah’s appeal was adjourned. The central issue was whether the evidence established the prior agreement and intention required for joint enterprise, and whether the resulting convictions were safe.

The appeals of Maruf Uddin and Alamin Miah were allowed and their convictions were quashed. Faruk Miah’s appeal had been adjourned and was not determined by these reasons.

1. On the count of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, the prosecution could not prove that either Uddin or Alamin Miah personally participated in the assault. It therefore had to prove that each was present intending to lend support or encouragement to those actively involved, and intending that they cause grievous bodily harm with intent to cause such harm.

   That case required evidence from which the jury could infer that, before leaving the train, all members of the group knew that some of them intended to cause serious harm. The evidence did not permit that inference. The judge should therefore have upheld the submission of no case to answer on that count.

2. The court accepted that the evidence could more readily support an inference that all group members had agreed to take part in some violence or horseplay after leaving the train. The case was extremely thin, but the judge was entitled to leave the violent-disorder count to the jury.

3. Nevertheless, that count also depended upon proof that all members of the group were party to a prior agreement. The jury’s verdicts showed that it did not accept the Crown’s case that every group member had joined such an agreement. There was no evidential basis to distinguish Uddin and Alamin Miah from the others who had been acquitted. Their convictions could not be regarded as safe.

If necessary, the court granted leave for the appellants to advance the additional ground that their convictions were unsafe in light of the jury’s apparent rejection of a central proposition of the prosecution case.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — by judgment dated 28 January 2004, [2004] EWCA Crim 63, allowed the appeals of Maruf Uddin and Alamin Miah and quashed their convictions. Faruk Miah’s appeal was adjourned.
• Crown Court at Middlesex Guildhall — following trial before His Honour Judge Blackwell QC, convicted Uddin and Faruk Miah of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, and convicted Alamin Miah of violent disorder on an alternative count.