R v Rahil Shuib

For robbery, a threat of force is sufficient; a weapon is not required. Words directing a person to get out of a vehicle may amount to a threat of violence, even where the jury are not sure that a weapon was produced. An appellant should not obtain the quashing of a conviction by advancing a new qualification to the jury directions, particularly where the answers given were legally correct, agreed at trial and the proposed qualification was never raised. The jury may therefore convict of robbery despite acquitting, or failing to agree, on a weapons count where the evidence supports a threat of violence.

The appellant was convicted at the Crown Court at Guildford on one count of robbery. He was acquitted of possessing a knife and had pleaded guilty to two drug-possession counts. His appeal, for which leave was granted by a single judge, concerned the judge’s answers to jury questions about force, violence and weapons.

The appellant argued that the Crown had put its case on the basis that he threatened the complainant with a knife. He submitted that, if the jury were not sure that a knife had been used, they were required to acquit him of robbery. The central issue was whether a robbery conviction could rest on a threat of violence without proof of a weapon, and whether the judge should have given a further direction linking the robbery and weapons counts.

The appeal against conviction was dismissed.

1. The judge’s answers to the jury’s questions were correct in law. A threat of force is sufficient for robbery, and a weapon is not necessary. [16]
2. The words directing the complainant to get out of his car were capable of amounting to a threat of violence sufficient to support robbery, even without proof of a weapon. [17]
3. The proposed “no knife, no robbery” direction had not been sought at trial. Prosecution and co-defence counsel had agreed that the jury could convict of robbery even if they were not sure that a weapon had been used. The judge had treated the robbery count as independent of the weapons count. Accepting the appellant’s argument would have required the whole structure and language of the jury directions to be recast. It would have been wrong to quash the conviction on that basis. The court noted that a differently constituted Court of Appeal had reached the same conclusion for the same reasons in R v Mundle [2024] EWCA Crim 1289. [20]–[23]
4. Even if the Crown had emphasised the alleged weapons, it remained open to the jury to conclude that the complainant had been threatened when told to leave his own car. [24]

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2024] EWCA Crim 1333, the appeal against conviction was dismissed.
• Crown Court at Guildford: On 7 November 2023, the appellant was convicted of robbery, acquitted of possessing a knife, and sentenced to a total of two years’ detention suspended for two years.