The defendent pleaded guilty to conspiring to obtain property by deception. He admitted receiving a total of andpound;51,920.
Held: This amount represented his benefit from his relevant criminal conduct for the purpose of the Act. That he had later given some of the money to his fellow conspirator was irrelevant. The court considered Rees and Gokal, and noted that Buxton J’s decision as to the meaning of benefit had understandably not been the subject of criticism on behalf of Gokal in the Court of Appeal. The court had to consider a challenge to the quantum of benefit and, in coming to a decision on that, gave no indication that it disagreed with the judge’s view as to the meaning of benefit. The court in Patel shared Buxton J’s view that section 15(2) of the Theft Act 1968 cannot assist in the construction of the 1988 Act where the offender is not charged with obtaining property by deception under section 15 or conspiracy to do so. In Rees, the defendant had pleaded guilty to three counts of obtaining money by deception, the money in each case being mortgage funds from a building society. He received three loans. The argument on his behalf to restrict the benefit to one of these loans only relied on the fact that the building society did not suffer a loss from the other two loans because there was adequate security for repayment of them under the mortgage. The decision was that, irrespective of any net loss to the building society, Rees had with others actually obtained the total amount of the three loans.
Citations:
[2000] 2 Cr App R(S) 10
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Olubitan v Regina CACD 7-Nov-2003
The defendant appealed against a confiscation order. He had used a company to defraud suppliers on the continent of substantial sums. He said that his involvement in the conspiracy was only toward the later end and that he had received no benefit in . .
Cited – Department for Works and Pensions v Richards; Regina v Richards (Michael) CACD 3-Mar-2005
After conviction for benefits fraud, the defendant appealed a confiscation order, saying that had he made appropriate claims for state benefirs under other heads, the loss to the state would have been much less (andpound;3000 not andpound;19,000). . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Sentencing
Updated: 29 April 2022; Ref: scu.187649