The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) made the referral to the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal (NICA) following a review of directions given to the jury during the trial of James Alexander Smith in 2013.

Under the joint enterprise law, Mr Smith and his co-accused Peter Greer were convicted at Downpatrick Crown Court in March 2013 of the murder of Duncan Morrison, the attempted murder of Stephen Ritchie and two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life in May 2011.

Mr Smith was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 21 years.

His conviction is one of dozens of cases the CCRC has reviewed since the UK Supreme Court ruling in R v Jogee [2016] UKSC 8, which made significant changes to the law in relation to secondary parties in joint enterprise cases.

The courts have confirmed that they will quash convictions where juries were directed in line with the “old” (i.e. pre-Jogee) law only where not doing so would result in a “substantial injustice”.

As Mr Smith’s trial was in 2013, the directions to the jury included references to the law as it stood pre-Jogee.

Helen Pitcher OBE, chairperson of the CCRC, said: “The CCRC has received dozens of applications to review historic joint enterprise convictions after the law was ruled in 2016 to have ‘taken a wrong turn’.

“Joint enterprise appeals have a high hurdle to clear — and in Mr Smith’s case, there had to be a strong case that the directions to the jury made a difference to the outcome of the trial.

“We have referred this case to the NICA because we believe there is a real possibility that they will overturn Mr Smith’s convictions.”