Common Purpose - Deliberate Departure

Deliberate Departure

Where one of the participants deliberately departs from the common purpose by doing something that was not authorised or agreed upon, that participant alone is liable for the consequences. In the situation exemplified in Davies v DPP (1954) AC 378 a group comes together for a fight or to commit a crime and either the participant knows or does not know that one of their team has a weapon. If the person knows that there is a weapon, it is foreseeable that it might be used and the fact that the other participants do not instruct the one carrying to leave it behind, means that its use must be within the scope of their intention. But if the person does not know of the weapon, this is a deliberate departure from the common purpose and this breaks the enterprise.

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Famous quotes containing the words deliberate and/or departure:

    Several moralists have recommended it as an excellent method of becoming acquainted with our own hearts, and knowing our progress in virtue, to recollect our dreams in a morning, and examine them with the same rigour that we would our most serious and most deliberate actions.
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    This house was but a slight departure from the hollow tree, which the bear still inhabits,—being a hollow made with trees piled up, with a coating of bark like its original.
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