R v O
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 02 September 2008 |
| Date | 02 September 2008 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
Court of Appeal, Criminal Division
Before Lord Justice Laws, Mr Justice Jack and Sir Charles Gray
Those who prosecuted defendants charged with immigration offences who might be victims of people-trafficking must be aware of the protocols in relation to such victims enshrined in the Code for Crown Prosecutors; defence lawyers must make inquiries if there was credible material showing that their client might have been such a victim, especially if the client was young.
The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, so stated when allowing an appeal by O against her conviction, on her plea of guilty, of possessing a false identity card with the intention of using it as her own, on March 17, 2008, at Canterbury Crown Court before Judge Adele Williams.
Mr Peter Carter QC and Miss Parosha Chandran, neither appeared below, assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals, for the appellant; Miss Noemi Byrd, not below, for the Crown.
LORD JUSTICE LAWS, giving the judgment of the court, said that article 10 of the Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (Council of Europe Treaty Series 197) required state parties to identify and protect victims of trafficking.
As a signatory to that Convention, the United Kingdom was obliged by article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties to refrain from acts which would defeat the purpose of the Trafficking Convention.
The United Kingdom had taken some measures expressly to support that purpose, by the terms of two protocols: (i) on prosecution of defendants charged with immigration offences who might be trafficked victims and (ii) on prosecution of young offenders charged with offences who might be trafficked victims.
Under the first protocol where a credible trafficked victim was prosecuted for an immigration offence, which included the possession of a false identity document, prosecutors were required to consider whether the public interest was best served in continuing the prosecution.
In the case of young defendants, where there was clear evidence that the youth had a credible defence of duress, the case should be discontinued on evidential grounds. Where the evidence was less certain, further details should be sought from the police and youth offender teams.
Any youths who might be traffic victims, should be afforded the protection of the child care legislation if there were concerns that they had been...
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