Wrong place, wrong time? The women fighting the injustice of joint enterprise

Lawyers and MPs are backing campaign to change law they say is being interpreted far too harshly, Holly Evans writes

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Three years ago, Salma Fiaz’s world was thrown into chaos when her teenage boyfriend was arrested by the police and charged with murder.

Faisal Fiaz, who was then aged 19, was part of a cannabis “snatch” from a local drug dealer in Redditch, Worcestershire, in July 2020. Things turned violent when his accomplice, Mohammed Hammad Hussain stabbed a man to death inside his own home. Fiaz, sitting in a car a short distance away, says he did not know Hussain was carrying a knife.

But while the killer, Hussain, fled the country for Pakistan and remains at large, Fiaz was jailed for life with a minimum of 23 years under joint enterprise.

The law states that an individual can be jointly charged with the crime of another if the court decides they could have predicted the other person was likely to commit that crime and intended to encourage or assist them. It means that those who do not inflict the fatal wound can receive life sentences for murder or manslaughter.

"All Faisal's seen is Hammad coming out, and no one knew what had happened at the time," Ms Fiaz said. "Faisal found out about the death the same time as everyone else when it came out on social media. You do feel guilty that someone has lost a son, a husband, a brother. He is sorry that someone has died. But I always make sure it's clear, he did not commit a murder."

Marrying Fiaz while in prison, she is faced with the prospect of not having children and being able to raise a family. "Families are also getting the punishment for this," she said. "I lost a husband, I lost a life partner."