The appellant, a pharmacist had been convicted of inflating his claims for monthly payments by a small amount. He sought a stay of confiscation proceedings, saying that they amounted to an abuse.
Held: The jurisdiction to order stay for abuse of process must be exercised with considerable caution ‘indeed sparingly’. That the effect of a confiscation will be to extract a sum greater than the net profit from the crimes is ‘clearly not sufficient’. However: ‘The enormous disparity between the excess of Shabir’s inflated claims (some few hundreds of pounds) and the confiscation order of over andpound;212,000 raises the real likelihood that this order is oppressive. As it seems to us, however, such a disparity will not in every case by itself establish oppression . . What was patently oppressive in the present case was to rely on the form of the counts for obtaining a money transfer by deception (i) to bring the criminal lifestyle provisions into operation when they could not have applied if the charges had reflected the fact that the defendant’s crimes involved fraud to an extent very much less than the threshold of andpound;5,000 and (ii) to advance the contention that the defendant had benefited to the tune of over andpound;179,000 when in ordinary language his claims were dishonestly inflated by only a few hundred pounds.’
Judges:
Hughes LJ, Dobbs J, Pert QC
Citations:
[2008] EWCA Crim 1809, [2008] Crim LR 991, [2009] Lloyd’s Rep FC 53, [2009] 1 Cr App Rep (S) 84
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Basso and Another v Regina CACD 19-May-2010
The defendants had been convicted of offences of failing to comply with planning enforcement notices (and fined andpound;10.00), and subsequently made subject to criminal confiscation orders. The orders had been made in respect of the gross income . .
Cited – Waya, Regina v SC 14-Nov-2012
The defendant appealed against confiscation orders made under the 2002 Act. He had bought a flat with a substantial deposit from his own resources, and the balance from a lender. That lender was repaid after he took a replacement loan. He was later . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Sentencing
Updated: 15 September 2022; Ref: scu.272288