Crimes Act 1961

Threatening, conspiring, and attempting to commit offences

312: Accessory after the fact to crime

You could also call this:

"Helping someone who broke the law can get you in trouble too"

If you help someone who has committed a crime, you can get in trouble too. This is called being an accessory after the fact to a crime. You can go to prison for up to 7 years if the crime you helped with has a maximum punishment of life in prison.

If the crime has a maximum punishment of 10 or more years in prison, you can go to prison for up to 5 years. For other crimes, your punishment will be half of what you would have got if you had committed the crime yourself. The punishment depends on what the original crime was and how serious it is.

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This page was last updated on 4 August 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM330796.

Topics:

Crime and justice > Criminal law

311: Attempt to commit or procure commission of offence, or

"Trying to commit a crime or getting someone else to do it can still get you in trouble"

312A: Interpretation, or

"This section explains what words and phrases mean in the law, but it's no longer used."

Part 11Threatening, conspiring, and attempting to commit offences

312Accessory after the fact to crime

Every one who is accessory after the fact to any imprisonable offence, being an offence in respect of which no express provision is made by this Act or by some other enactment for the punishment of an accessory after the fact, is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years if the maximum punishment for that offence is imprisonment for life, and not exceeding 5 years if such maximum punishment is imprisonment for 10 or more years; and in any other case is liable to not more than half the maximum punishment to which he or she would have been liable if he or she had committed the offence.

Compare

1908 No 32 ss 352, 353

Notes

Section 312: amended, on 1 July 2013, by section 7 of the Crimes Amendment Act 2013 (2013 No 27).