The defendant had been charged generally under a provision which allowed two possible offences. His advocate made his claim for the more serious offence, which fell into a more highly paid category. The Lord Chancellor appealed.
Held: The appealed failed: ‘It is quite clear that if a defendant is charged with two different offences and those two offences appear in different Classes, the trial advocate can choose which of the offences he is applying for payment in relation to, so that he can choose the one that will obviously pay him better if there is a difference in the level of remuneration’ and ‘Section 3(1)(e), as I have already stated, provides that where any entry in the table of offences specifies an offence as being contrary to a statutory provision, then subject to any express limitation in that entry the entry will include every offence contrary to that statutory provision whether or not the words of description in that entry are appropriate to cover all such offences. The only entry in the table of offences relating to an offence contrary to section 170(1)(b) is under Classes F, G and K, described as ‘fraudulent evasion of duty’. Unless those words in some way expressly limit the offence, then all other offences indicted under section 170(1)(b) would also fall in that category. ‘
Andrews J
[2013] EWHC 3642 (QB)
Bailii
Criminal Service Funding Order 2007
Costs, Criminal Practice
Updated: 20 December 2021; Ref: scu.536021