The Director of Public Prosecutions has still not produced the promised guidelines for Prosecutors regarding the Joint Enterprise Principle. JENGbA will continue to pursue the need for this. However, a very quick trawl of the internet shows the following recent acquittals, how many more don't we know about? This is promising as it clearly shows how these trials are a waste of time, and they cost a vast amount of taxpayers' money.
The pain each defendant and their loved ones are forced to endure MUST be recognised and publicly debated. To be acquitted either by a jury or on appeal is no prize. For many, jobs and homes are lost, even loved ones, as in the case of Sam Hallam, and most definitely anyone involved will have their emotional stability and reputation damaged beyond repair. And what for? Why do the Police and Prosecutors feel it is right to do this to innocent people? Why do we still have no guidelines? Until something is done, more innocent lives will be thrown away as if they are of no value. Are you going to be the next victim in the Joint Enterprise lottery?
The list of people below are considered by JENGbA members as the lucky ones. They are lucky to have their freedom and liberty restored. Each and every innocent prisoner JENGbA supports dreams of having what they now have. They believe once they get the Justice they deserve life will continue as it did before. Sadly it will just be a new and equally painful battle, but it's a battle they deserve to have the freedom to win.
If some Prosecutors are now recognising the need to only take a case to court with strong evidence that is a good thing. But what about those cases in which laziness was the order of the day? JENGbA will always embrace a positive change and will encourage this until we have a justice system that is fair for everyone. We will continue to push for the recognition that past cases only gained convictions by using a confusing, lazy legal principle and stretching it beyond any reasonable person's definition of the law.
Ask yourself these simple questions.
Do you believe in such a thing as being in the wrong place at the wrong time and then being given a life sentence on that basis?
Do you believe in being used as an example even though you have done nothing wrong?
Anyone who condones this nonsense should offer up their own freedom and liberty and not expect others, who are intelligent and moral enough not to believe in such a thing, to sacrifice their entire lives in order to support this belief.
Please read the articles below and try to engage in a mindset that you are one of the defendants and that you are INNOCENT. If you can do that you will notice how the media cannot or will not address the issue of WHY all these innocent people were subjected to the trauma of a trial, months or even years on remand and for those convicted years of imprisonment? The answer is very simple, the continued abuse of the Joint Enterprise principle.
It may also be of interest to know that a Senior Prison Officer in one of our heavily packed YOI's (under 21's) recently divulged that if it was not for the Joint Enterprise principle the prison in which he works would have half the prisoners it now has. This person understandably wants to remain anonymous, but this shocking revelation shows us that the people we support really are just the tip of the iceberg. It tells me that you and your loved ones are far more susceptible to being imprisoned as an innocent person than ever before. You better believe it, if it can happen to my family it can happen to yours.
