Jamal & Ors v R.

Factual and Procedural Background

Following a trial in the Crown Court at Leicester, the First, Second and Third Appellants were acquitted of two murder counts but convicted of two counts of manslaughter; their co-accused were convicted of murder, and one other accused was acquitted of both murder and manslaughter. The trial judge later sentenced the Appellants to terms of imprisonment, reduced on appeal by this court, and the Appellants then appealed their convictions with leave granted by the Full Court on the first ground only. [Para 31][Para 32][Para 33][Para 34][Para 35][Para 36][Para 37][Para 38][Para 39][Para 41][Para 42]

The prosecution case was that, after a relationship ended, one accused was blackmailing the male victim with explicit material, a plan was formed to lure him to a meeting, and the Appellants and others became involved in arranging an attack meant to obtain the phone, delete the images, and cause at least really serious harm, if not death, to silence him. On 10 February 2022 the vehicles arrived at the Tesco car park, the victims briefly appeared and drove away, the appellants and others pursued them, the male victim made a 999 call reporting that they were being followed and blocked in, and the chase ended in a fatal crash in which both victims died. [Para 41][Para 42][Para 43][Para 44][Para 48][Para 49][Para 51][Para 52][Para 53][Para 54][Para 55][Para 58][Para 59][Para 60][Para 61]

At trial, the Appellants admitted being passengers in one vehicle but denied any plan to harm the victims, and their submissions of no case to answer were rejected. [Para 105][Para 106]

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether the route to verdict for unlawful act manslaughter and secondary participation was wrong in law because the judge did not properly identify the base offence and its constituent elements. [Para 142][Para 144][Para 148]
2. Whether Question 8 in the route to verdict improperly allowed conviction on a plan merely to expose the victims to an obvious risk of harm, making the manslaughter convictions unsafe. [Para 149][Para 150]
3. Whether, in context, the judge’s directions as a whole sufficiently explained the prosecution case and the legal requirements for murder, manslaughter, joint participation and supervening event. [Para 108][Para 112][Para 122][Para 128][Para 164][Para 169]

Arguments of the Parties

Appellants' Arguments

• The Appellants relied on R v Grey [2024] EWCA Crim 487 and argued that unlawful act manslaughter requires identification of the base offence, with directions on its actus reus and mens rea, which the trial judge failed to do. [Para 144][Para 148]
• They contended that the deliberate ramming of the vehicle was the unlawful act causing death, amounting to criminal damage or assault, and that the judge did not identify that offence with sufficient precision. [Para 147][Para 148]
• They argued that Question 8 was defective because it allowed the jury to convict on a common plan merely to expose the victims to an obvious risk of harm, without needing to be sure that they intentionally assisted or encouraged the unlawful act. [Para 149][Para 150]
• On that basis, they said the manslaughter convictions were unsafe. [Para 150]

Prosecution's Arguments

• The prosecution submitted that the case had been presented as a joint plan to lure the male victim to the car park and attack him, intending either to kill him or cause really serious harm, or alternatively some harm. [Para 151][Para 152]
• It argued that Question 8 reflected that common plan, and that Question 9 properly required the jury to consider whether the fatal crash was an overwhelming supervening event. [Para 152][Para 153]
• It further submitted that, even if the judge did not expressly name the base offence as assault, the directions sufficiently identified what the prosecution had to prove, and the convictions were safe on the strength of the evidence. [Para 154][Para 155]

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court accepted that the prosecution case, as opened, was that the accused had agreed to lure the male victim to the car park to assault him and to inflict at least really serious harm, or alternatively some lesser harm, in order to silence him. [Para 157][Para 160]

The judges held that if the victims had been killed while escaping from the car park, or even in the ensuing high-speed chase, the participants would still have faced criminal liability because the fatal events were part of the original unlawful plan. [Para 161][Para 162][Para 163]

They concluded that the trial judge’s legal directions on murder, manslaughter, joint participation and overwhelming supervening event were appropriate, and that the route to verdict, read in context, directed the jury to the real issues in the case. [Para 108][Para 112][Para 122][Para 128][Para 164][Para 169]

The court identified only one concern: the words in Question 8 referring to a plan “to expose them to an obvious risk of harm,” which it said would not by itself be enough to prove a plan to assault the male victim. [Para 170]

However, the court held that this wording did not make the convictions unsafe because the prosecution case, the summing-up, and the evidence overwhelmingly showed a common plan to inflict at least some injury, and the jury would have understood that the relevant plan was the planned assault at the car park. [Para 171][Para 172][Para 173]

The court further held that this case did not undermine Grey; rather, unlike Grey, the base offence was sufficiently identified and the jury had enough guidance to resolve the issues the prosecution had to prove. [Para 178]

Holding and Implications

The appeals against conviction were dismissed. [Para 179]

The direct consequence was that the manslaughter convictions remained in force. The court did not set out any broader new principle; it instead reaffirmed that Grey remains important, while holding that the directions in this case were adequate on the facts. [Para 175][Para 178][Para 179]