The defendant postmaster had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to obtain property by deception. He had obtained payment of pounds 51,920 from the Post Office by using stolen benefit books and forging signatures. He had then paid a share of the proceeds to an accomplice. A confiscation order was made against him in the full sum of pounds 51,920. He argued that the judge had had a discretion to order payment of a smaller sum, and that he should not in any event have ordered the payment of more than what was left to the defendant after paying his accomplice.
Held: The submissions were rejected. The discretion which the court had originally enjoyed under the Act had been removed by the 1995 Act. The defendant admitted receiving in his hand the sum ordered, and what he did with the money afterwards was irrelevant.
Citations:
[1999] EWCA Crim 2268, [2000] 2 Cr App R (S) 10
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – May, Regina v HL 14-May-2008
The defendant had been convicted of involvement in a substantial VAT fraud, and made subject to a confiscation order. He was made subject to a confiscation order in respect of the amounts lost to the fraud where he was involved, but argued that the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Sentencing
Updated: 31 October 2022; Ref: scu.270206