Commentary on Sections Jurisdiction and Procedure Section 57: Alternative verdicts and guilty pleas
204.Section 57 sets out the offences in relation to which a person may be found guilty as an alternative where he has been prosecuted on indictment for an offence under sections 44, 45 and 46. This is to produce the same effect as the rules in relation to alternative verdicts in relation to a trial on indictment for the offences encouraged or assisted.
205.Subsection (1) provides that a person may be found guilty of the offences of encouraging or assisting contained in sections 44 and 45 by reference to an alternative offence.
206.Subsection (2) sets out a similar rule in relation to an offence under section 46. Where a person is charged with that offence, and the jury find him not guilty by reference to one of the specified offences, he may nevertheless be found guilty of that offence by reference to an alternative offence.
207.Subsection (3) makes it clear that if under section 46 a person is found guilty by reference to one or more of the specified offences, it would also be possible to find him guilty in relation to an alternative offence. The penalty will depend on which of the offences is the more serious.
208.Subsection (4) sets out what is meant by the term ‘alternative offence’. The general rule, which is set out in section 6(3) of the Criminal Law Act 1967, is that an alternative verdict can be returned for another offence if the offence charged amounts to or includes an allegation of the other offence. Similarly under subsection (4) an alternative verdict can be returned if: (a) it is an offence for which an accused could be found guilty on trial on indictment for the other offence (for example, on a trial for murder, a verdict can be returned of manslaughter, grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent or infanticide) or (b) it is an indictable offence or one to which section 40 Criminal Justice Act 1988 applies (this allows the inclusion on an indictment of an offence of common assault) etc and the condition in subsection (5) is met.
209.The condition insubsection (5) is that the allegations in the indictment must amount to, or include, an allegation of the commission of the Part 2 offence by reference to the alternative offence. Subsection (7) sets out that in relation to an offence under section 44, a reference to the allegations in the indictment includes a reference to an attempt to commit a specified offence.
210.For example, D gives P a baseball bat. The prosecution charge D with an offence under section 45 alleging that D believed that P would use the bat to commit GBH against V. The jury decide that they do not accept that D believed GBH would be committed. However they are satisfied that D believed that actual bodily harm (ABH) would be committed. Just as it would be possible, on a charge of GBH, to find an accused guilty of ABH instead, the jury could convict, as an alternative to the offence of encouraging or assisting GBH, of encouraging or assisting ABH.
211.Subsection (8) ensures that an offence which would be an alternative offence to one of the offences listed in Schedule 3 is to be disregarded in the same way as the substantive offences listed in Schedule 3 when prosecuting under sections 45 or 46. This means that in the same way as the offences in Schedule 3 cannot be considered for a prosecution under sections 45 or 46, neither can an offence which would be an alternative offence to one of these offences.
212.Subsection (10) sets out that person may plead guilty to an offence which would be encompassed by the offence with which he was charged.
213.For example, D is charged with encouraging or assisting P to rob X. D denies this but says he did realise that P was planning to steal something from X and therefore is prepared to plead guilty to assisting theft.