The Daily Telegraph

Abuse victims ‘unfairly convicted’ in murder trials

- By Catherine Baksi

ABUSED women are being unfairly convicted of murder and manslaught­er under joint enterprise law, researcher­s have warned.

A report highlighti­ng the issue also found that half of those convicted were not present during the crimes.

Currently, there are at least 109 females serving long sentences for joint enterprise crimes, but research by Manchester Metropolit­an University suggests they have been wrongly convicted using the controvers­ial law on secondary liability, which allows an individual to be jointly convicted of a crime committed by another if they foresaw that the other person was likely to commit it.

According to the report, almost half of the women disclosed that they were experienci­ng domestic violence at the time of the offence, and in 87 per cent of cases, the perpetrato­r of the abuse was a co-defendant, but their histories of abuse and trauma were generally ignored or used against them at trial.

The study also revealed that the women were often marginal to the event – in no case did any use a deadly weapon, 90 per cent engaged in no violence at all, and in half of the cases the women were not even present at the scene.

Yet they were convicted and punished in the same way, and sometimes more harshly, than the person who struck the fatal blow.

Becky Clarke, the report’s co-author, who is a senior criminolog­y lecturer at Manchester Metropolit­an University, said: “The experience­s of the women examined in our report paint a harrowing picture of injustice which is currently sanctioned by our legal system. These women are wrongly convicted.”

Harriet Wistrich, director of the Centre for Women’s Justice, told The Daily Telegraph: “It is further evidence to signal the need for a complete overhaul of the criminal justice system, and the inability of the state to take into account the experience of domestic violence.”

A CPS spokesman said: “It is right that those who assist or encourage someone to commit a violent crime are also prosecuted and punished.”

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