Aggravated Burglary

In this case aggravated burglary involves

• entering a building (such as a flat) as a trespasser; and
  
• at the time having with him a firearm; and
  
• stealing property belonging to another.
  

Entering as a trespasser means entering without the owner’s permission.

As a matter of law, the *** which the police found is a firearm.

Stealing means dishonestly taking something (in this case the ***) with the intention of permanently depriving the owner.

In this case there is no doubt that someone committed a burglary.  The prosecution case is that D** committed that burglary or was somehow involved in committing that burglary.   They say that ***.

Where a criminal offence is committed by two or more persons, each of them may play a different part, but if they are in it together, as part of a joint plan or agreement to commit it, they are each guilty.  So, to take a completely unrelated example, in a bank robbery, the man who waits outside the bank as look out, the men who stand and watch over the customers to make sure that they do not intervene and the getaway driver, are just as guilty as the men who point guns at the bank staff, blow open the safe and run off with the money. 

The defendant denies that he had anything to do with the burglary.  He says that***.

So, the key questions for you to answer in relation to Count 1, having regard to all the evidence and the directions which I give you, are these

1.         Are you sure that D** was the person who W** saw in the garden of *** and that he played some part in the burglary there? and

2.         Are you sure that at that time he had the **(gun) with him?

 

If the answer to both questions is “yes”, the defendant is guilty of Count 1 (aggravated burglary).  If the answer to question 1 is “yes”, but the answer to question 2 is “no” (i.e. he was involved in the burglary, but you are not sure he had the **gun with him at that time), he is not guilty of Count 1, but guilty of “simple” burglary without a weapon, an alternative which is not on the indictment.

If the answer to both questions is “no”, he is not guilty of aggravated burglary or burglary.

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