Towers, Jordan

Jordan Towers was 16 years old when he was tried in October 2007 at Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Crown Court for murder and for wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. He and two co-defendants were tried on the basis of joint enterprise.

He pleaded not guilty but was convicted of both charges and sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure with a minimum custodial term of 13 years. The sentence reflected Mr Towers’ age at the time.

The offences for which Mr Towers and his co-defendants were convicted arose out of incidents on 19 May 2007 when Kevin Johnson was fatally stabbed during an altercation outside his home in Sunderland. A few minutes later another man, Jamie Thompson, was also stabbed during an altercation but his injuries were not life-threatening.

Mr Towers and two co-defendants stood trial together and were all convicted on the basis of joint enterprise for the murder of Mr Johnson and for the wounding with intent of Mr Thompson.

Mr Towers tried to appeal against his conviction but his application for leave to appeal was refused by the full court in July 2008.

Mr Towers applied to the CCRC in 2009 and 2013 but in spite of extensive consideration of the case, the CCRC was unable to identify grounds on which it could refer the convictions for appeal. Mr Towers applied again in 2015.

In February 2016, while the case was under review, the Supreme Court made its decision in the cases of R-v-Jogee; Ruddock v The Queen [2016] UKSC 8 (Jogee) which changed the law in relation to joint enterprise convictions involving the liability of secondary parties.

Having considered the case in light of Jogee, and of the subsequent Court of Appeal decision in the cases of R-v-Johnson & others [2016] EWCA Crim 1613 (Johnson), the CCRC decided to refer Mr Towers’ murder conviction to the Court of Appeal because it considered there was a real possibility the Court would quash the conviction.

The referral was based on the change in the law in relation to the liability of secondary parties brought about by the judgment in Jogee and elaborated in Johnson, and on the basis that the Court of Appeal could conclude that to uphold Mr Towers’ conviction for murder would amount to a “substantial injustice”.

The CCRC referred the murder conviction in July 2018.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction in February 2019.