Month: November 2023

A Conspiracy to Supply Drugs, Case Study Indictment.

Below is a sample indictment of a Conspiracy to Supply Controlled Drugs Matter.

An indictment is not usually prepared until the case has been sent to the Crown Court.

The case begins life in the Magistrates Court under the authority of a charge similar to an indictment and is to be found on a charge sheet.

Once at the Crown Court the case is reviewed by the Prosecution and a perfected Indictment is prepared as seen below.  Any anomalies such as dates or times, spelling corrections or even defendant names are amended and an indictment is served upon the Defence team.

The indictment forms the backbone of the Prosecution case.

An indictment sets out the Defendants name, the Statement of Offence defines the Conspiracy and the particulars of the offence refers to the circumstances of the conspiracy relative to the matter itself in this example relating to drugs.   Equally it could be any other offence.

The particulars section specifies not just the substance of the conspiracy ie Drugs or sale and transfer of weapons but crucially with whom the Defendant conspired and between what dates.

The URN denotes a number and that number identifies the case within the Court system.

                                     INDICTMENT

IN THE CROWN COURT AT “Name of Crown Court”

THE KING – v – Joe Bloggs

Joe Bloggs  is charged as follows:

                                                                                STATEMENT OF OFFENCE

CONSPIRACY TO SUPPLY A CONTROLLED DRUG OF CLASS B, Contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977.

PARTICULARS OF OFFENCE

Joe Bloggs between the 1st day of May 2022 and the 1st day of April 2023 conspired with John Doe and others to supply a controlled drug of class B, namely cannabis, contrary to section 4(1)of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

Officer of the Court

URN:

Criminal Conspiracy is governed by the Criminal Law Act 1977.

The offence of conspiracy is defined in Section 1 and is as follows:

• Subject to the following provisions of this part of this act, if a person agrees with any other person or persons, that a course of conduct shall be pursued which, if the agreement is carried out in accordance with their intentions, either-

• Will necessarily amount to involve the commission of any offence or offences by one or more of the parties to the agreement, or

• Would do so but for the distance of facts which render the commission of the offence, or any of the offences impossible.

• He is guilty of conspiracy to commit the offence or offences in question.

Common forms of conspiracy or offences relating to conspiracy include conspiracy to supply drugs, conspiracy to possess for sale or transfer prohibited weapons and conspiracy to commit fraud. These are just some common examples as conspiracy can cover a wide range of offences.

However, the key to conspiracy is that the conduct has to amount to involve the commission of an offence or offences by two or more parties to an agreement.

Conspiracy can be and is far more complicated and this is just a simple introduction.

If you are facing criminal charges whilst on police bail and under investigation and are not represented by a solicitor, please feel free to contact us to discuss this matter further. We have extensive experience of dealing with conspiracy matters and specifically people charged with conspiracy offences.  We partner with the Legal Aid Agency to offer Legal Aid subject to menas testing.

In this series of blogs, we intend to explore some case. We will consider studies of examples of cases where people have faced charges of conspiracy relating to different types of offences.

We will consider potential defenses and demonstrate generally  how we investigate and prepare those defenses and prepare the case generally for trial.

Each case of course is different and unique and offers its own challenges however our breadth of experience equips us to be able to test the strength of the Prosecution case well in advance of trial.

We will next look at some examples of cases of conspiracy to supply drugs in the next blog.