Report No. 60
14.4. Essential ingredients required to be the same.-
In order to constitute the "same crime", the essential ingredients should be the same. In E. v. Kupferberg, (1918) 13 Cr App Rep 166 (168), quoted in Connelly v. D.P.P., (1964) 2 All ER 401 (424)., for example, an acquittal on a charge of conspiring to contravene a regulation was held not to found a plea of autrefois acquit on a charge of aiding and abetting its contravention. A.T. Lawrence, J. said:
"For a plea of autrefois acquit to be maintainable, the offence of which the accused has been acquitted and that with which he is charged must be the same in the sense that each must have the same essential ingredients1. The facts which constitute the one must be sufficient to justify a conviction for the other."
1. Emphasis supplied.
14.5. The statement of the law by Hawkins1 was approved in D.P.P. v. Cannelly, (1964) 2 All WR 401 (428) (HL). with this comment:
"The phrases 'the same essential ingredients' and 'the facts which constitute' are to be noted. They denote and, in my view, correctly denote an entirely different situation that which merely involves that the same facts may be relevant in the case of two charges, or that some evidence which is given in one case may again be given as being relevant in another."
A conviction or acquittal, then, bars punishment for the "same offence".
1. Para. 14.3, supra.
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