270 miners have now been charged with the murder of 34 of their colleagues who were shot by the police two week s ago in what has become known as the “Marikana  massacre”.

The best known case of the use “common purpose” doctrine was that of the “Upington 14”, who were sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder of a policeman even though the judge acknowledged that they did not carry out the killing.

We will wait and see what the backlash from this will be.