In a question and answer session with the House of Commons Justice Committee, Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson told the Chair Andrew Slaughter his office were undertaking a study to ascertain how many people are awaiting trial whilst being only peripheral to any offence committed, and also to monitor their ethnic origin. This follows a pilot study which appears to prove that the charge, whereby people can be prosecuted for murder when they were not involved in any action that caused death but were merely associated in some way with the attacker, is discriminatory.
He promised a full report would be published next May, and given that the charge is already being investigated by a full Westminster Commission to be led by Lord Woodley at the request of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Miscarriages of Justice chaired by Kim Johnston MP, and launched earlier this Autumn.
this is seen by campaigners, including JENGbA (Joint Enterprise Not Guilty By Association) as a major step forward in delivering changes demanded by the UK Supreme Court back in 2016 when they said that the use of Joint Enterprise had taken a “wrong turn” decades earlier.
See linked article on Old Street News: