‘Who is guilty of murder when four people surround somebody? The one who kicks? The one who suddenly produces the knife that is the offensive weapon that causes the death? The one who eggs on the man who has the knife? The one who says to him, “For God’s sake!”…  It is one thing to be party to punching somebody, and quite another to be party to using a potentially lethal weapon on him.’

Lord Judge, 2011

‘Unless the law is clear – and I’m not certain it is – then you increase risk of injustice. If the law is unclear, it can be applied in an inconsistent way… is it fair that someone is convicted for murder if they have foreseen as a possibility that someone else might intentionally kill or cause serious harm?’

Professor David Ormerod, the Law Commissioner

‘My main concern is that a defendant can be convicted for murder, with the mandatory life sentence, even though he or she did not cause death and did not have the intention to kill or to cause serious injury.’

Professor Graham Virgo of Cambridge University

‘The message that the law is sending out is that we are very willing to see people convicted if they are a part of gang violence – and that violence ends in somebody’s death. Is it unfair? Well, what you’ve got to decide is not ‘does the system lead to people being wrongly convicted?’ I think the real question is do you want a law as draconian as our law is, which says juries can convict even if you are quite a peripheral member of the gang which killed? And I think broadly the view of reasonable people is that you probably do need a quite draconian law in that respect.’

Lord Falconer, former Lord Chancellor

‘The joint enterprise doctrine is a very, very complicated law. Judges don’t just convict willy nilly, there has to be evidence that puts the suspect there at the scene. These judges know what they are doing, they do not rush anything, they delve into it.’

Lorraine Fraser, mother of a murdered teen