Sam Robinson KC of the Garden Court Crime Team acted for the defendant, leading Jodie Hitchcock of 3TG, with invaluable assistance from the instructing solicitor, Helen D’Silva of D’Silva’s Solicitors.
The legal team secured an acquittal for a defendant charged with murder following trial at the Central Criminal Court.
The prosecution case arose in unusual circumstances. Previously, the defendant had been convicted of the attempted murder of a man, who had died ten years later from his gunshot injuries.
Due to this earlier conviction, the burden lay on the defence to prove, on the balance of probabilities, that the previous jury had been wrong to conclude that he was a willing participant in the shooting and that he shared an intention to kill.
The defence case was that the previous conviction for attempted murder had been reached against a false factual background created by lies told by the defendant at the first trial.
The case involved complex analysis of the relationship between the parties, telephone evidence, movements before the shooting and the eyewitness evidence. The defence successfully argued that, on this basis, it was more likely than not that the co-defendant had acted alone and that the defendant was not party to the shooting.
