The court considered the offence of child trafficking. The defendants had been the victims of such offences and used for managing cannabis production. It was argued that neither defendant should have been prosecuted.
Held: The appeals failed. The defence of duress should not be extended for a new category, that of victims of people trafficking, but rather awareness that a defendant might be a victim requires consideration of the offence of duress by a prosecutor in deciding whether to proceed. Whilst there were omissions in the consideration, on the evidence as a whole, N’s case was subject to mitigation, but no more on the facts.
Lord Judge LCJ, Royce, Globe JJ
[2012] EWCA Crim 189
Bailii
Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings 2005 4
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v SK CACD 8-Jul-2011
The defendant appealed against her conviction for trafficking a complainant into the United Kingdom for the purposes of exploitation, contrary to section 4 of the 2004 Act.
Held: The appeal succeeded, and a retrial ordered. The court . .
Cited – O, Regina v CACD 2-Sep-2008
The defendant agirl in her mid teens, appealed against her conviction for carrying a false identity card.
Held: The appeal was not opposed. The United Kingdom having signed the Convention on Action against People Trafficking was bound to . .
Cited – Mullen, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department HL 29-Apr-2004
The claimant had been imprisoned, but his conviction was later overturned. He had been a victim of a gross abuse of executive power. The British authorities had acted in breach of international law and had been guilty of ‘a blatant and extremely . .
Cited – Rantsev v Cyprus And Russia ECHR 7-Jan-2010
A Russian woman, aged 20, had gone to work as an artiste in a cabaret in Cyprus. Three weeks later she was found dead in a street.
Held: The Court upheld her father’s complaint that Cyprus was in breach of article 4 in that its regime for the . .
Cited – LM and Others v Regina; Regina v M(L), B(M) and G(D) CACD 21-Oct-2010
Each defendant appealed saying that being themselves the victims of people trafficking, the prosecutions had failed to take into account its obligations under the Convention.
Held: Prosecutors had ‘a three-stage exercise of judgment. The first . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.451410