The appellant had pleaded guilty to three offences of conspiracy to defraud by inflating invoices for goods supplied. The first of those offences took place at a time between January 1995 and October 2006; the second between January 1995 and June 2007; and the third between January 1997 and 30 November 2007. Section 16(5) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 1995, which was the statute under which the confiscation orders were sought, provided: ‘Section 1 . . shall not apply in the case of any proceedings against any person where that person is convicted in those proceedings of an offence which was committed before the commencement of that section.’
The section came into force on 1 November 1995. In each of the otter cases there were overt acts committed in pursuance of the existence of the relevant conspiracy both before and after that date, 1st November 1995. Counsel’s submission was that as the conspiracies in Counts 1 and 2 ran from 1st January 1995, the offences in Counts 1 and 2 were being committed both before and after 1st November 1995. That being so in these proceedings the appellant was ‘convicted . . of an offence which was committed before [1st November 1995]’. It followed that the judge had the discretion to make an order in the full agreed sum of pounds 40,000 or a lesser sum or none at all.’
Lord Justice Kennedy, Mr Justice Goldring and Sir Charles McCullough
Unreported, 8 February 2000, 9905818X4
Criminal Justice Act 1988 71
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – McCool, Regina v SC 2-May-2018
The appellants complained that the recovery order made against them in part under the transitional provisions were unlawful. They had claimed benefits as single people but were married to each other and for a house not occupied. The difficulty was . .
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Updated: 19 July 2021; Ref: scu.182380 br>