Shillam v R

A conviction for a single conspiracy requires proof that each convicted defendant shared a common unlawful purpose or design within the terms of the indictment. Similar but separate arrangements do not suffice.

A wheel or chain arrangement may constitute one conspiracy even if participants do not communicate directly or know every other participant. However, each must have joined the shared criminal design. A jury must not convict an alleged peripheral participant merely because that person separately agreed with a central supplier to buy drugs for onward sale.

The appellant was convicted at Birmingham Crown Court of conspiring with two named defendants and others to supply cocaine. The prosecution alleged that Robb was the central figure in acquiring and processing drugs. The appellant was said to buy cocaine regularly from Robb and sell it to his own customers.

The prosecution did not assert that the appellant and Reid knew one another. The trial judge directed the jury that the issue was whether each defendant had agreed with at least one other person to supply cocaine. In response to a jury question, he added that a conspiracy could be between any one of the named defendants and a person unknown.

The appeal concerned whether those directions permitted convictions for separate conspiracies rather than the single conspiracy charged.

1. Appeal allowed; conviction quashed. The directions were misleading and defective. They permitted the jury to convict each named defendant upon proof of a separate agreement with another person, including an unknown person, without finding that all convicted defendants had joined the single conspiracy alleged.

2. Conspiracy requires a single joint design between the conspirators within the indictment. A common design is a shared design, not similar but separate designs. The court applied the principles stated in Mehta [2012] EWCA Crim 2824, and illustrated by Griffiths [1966] 1 QB 589.

3. An umbrella, wheel or chain conspiracy can exist despite the absence of direct communication between all participants. Nor need every participant know every other participant. But the prosecution must prove that each accused agreed with another guilty person in relation to the same shared criminal purpose. Proof that a buyer regularly obtained cocaine from a supplier for resale does not, without more, establish that the buyer joined a wider distribution conspiracy.

4. Where the alleged central participant was said to head the wider conspiracy, the jury should first have considered whether that participant was guilty. If so, it then had to decide separately whether each other defendant shared the wider common design, rather than merely a bilateral arrangement to purchase cocaine.

5. On the evidence, a properly directed jury could not necessarily have found that the appellant was party to a conspiracy beyond his arrangements to buy cocaine from Robb. The conviction was therefore unsafe. The court also observed that prosecutors should formulate conspiracy charges carefully and consider whether substantive offences better reflect the evidence.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): allowed the appeal and quashed the appellant’s conviction for conspiracy to supply cocaine.
• Birmingham Crown Court: on 9 July 2012, HH Judge Henderson convicted the appellant of conspiracy to supply cocaine.