BERNARD HARRY SIMMONDS ; WILLIAM HOLFORD BARRINGTON-COUPE ; TERENCE WILLIAM ORWELL ; HENRY COHEN ; HAMPDEN Company (SALES) Ltd ; HAMPDEN Company (ELECTRONICS) Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | MR. JUSTICE FENTON ATKINSON,LORD JUSTICE SACHS |
| Judgment Date | 10 March 1967 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1967] EWCA Crim J0310-1 |
| Docket Number | No. 1702/66 No. 2648/66 No. 3048/66 No. 1703/66 No. 1704/66 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Date | 10 March 1967 |
[1967] EWCA Crim J0310-1
Lord Justice Sachs
Mr. Justice Fenton Atkinson
and
Mr. Justice James
No. 1702/66
No. 1701/66
No. 2648/66
No. 3048/66
No. 1703/66
No. 1704/66
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
SIR PETER RAWLINSON, Q.C. and MR. J. C. TATHAM appeared as Counsel for the Appellant, Simmonds.
MR. MUIR HUNTER, Q.C. and MR. D. A. PAIBA appeared as Counsel for the Appellant, Barrington-Coupe.
MR. N. McKINNON, Q.C. and MR. N. E. WIGGINS appeared as Counsel for the Appellant, Orwell.
MR. N. McKINNON, Q.C. and MR. N. E. WIGGINS appeared as Counsel for the Appellant, Cohen.
SIR PETER RAWLINSON, Q.C. and MR. J. C. TATHAM appeared as Counsel for the Appellant Company, Hampden Co. (Sales) Ltd.
SIR PETER RAWLINSON, Q.C. and MR. J. C. TATHAM appeared as Counsel for the Appellant Company, Hampden Co. (Electronics) Ltd.
MR. E. S. FAY, Q.C., MR. J. S. R. ABDELA, Q.C. and MR. A. COLLINS appeared as Counsel for the Crown.
After a trial at the Central Criminal Court which lasted from the 4th January, 1966, until 17th May, 1966, the Appellants, Simmonds, Barrington-Coupe, Cohen and Orwell, together with one Conway and certain limited companies were found guilty by the Jury of a number of counts involving conspiracy and offences against Purchase Tax legislation.
The first count charged Simmonds, Barrington-Coupe, Cohen, Orwell, one MacMillan, Hampden (Sales) Ltd., Barrington-Coupe Ltd., Delta Record Co., Ltd., and Master Records Ltd. with conspiracy between 1st January, 1962, and 31st August, 1962, to cheat and defraud H.M. The Queen and the Commissioners of Customs and Excise of purchase tax chargeable on the delivery of wireless receiving sets. The second count was the same substituting Conway and P. Conway (Export and Import) Ltd. for Barrington-Coupe, MacMillan, Barrington-Coupe Ltd. and Delta.
The third count charged Simmonds, Barrington-Coupe, MacMillan, Hampden (Sales) Ltd., Hampden (Electronics) Ltd., Barrington-Coupe Ltd., and Delta with a similar conspiracy between 15th June, 1962, and 30th September, 1963.
Not content with these three major conspiracy counts the prosecution added and insisted upon having tried at the same time three individual counts:-
-
(1) Count 4 charged Simmonds and Hampden (Electronics) with fraudulent evasion of tax on one transaction in respect of 200 sets.
-
(2) Count 5 charged Simmonds and the same company with furnishing a false purchase tax return with intent to deceive.
-
(3) Count 6 only concerned Conway and Conway Ltd. and charged the furnishing of a false document with intent to deceive.
In the result, with the exception of MacMillan, all the above were convicted on all the charges in which they were concerned and sentences of imprisonment and fines were imposed which are not the subject of appeal. Before this Court Simmonds, Barrington-Coupe, Cohen, Orwell and the two Hampden Companies appeal against conviction, the applications of the companies being treated as appeals.
The main points taken on their behalf are:-
Firstly, that the length and complexity of the trial were such that justice could not be done to individual accused whatever care the Judge took;
Secondly, that the Judge was wrong to split his summing-up into three parts, taking verdicts on Counts 4 and 6 before summing-up Counts 1 and 2, and taking verdicts on those Counts before summing-up Counts 3 and 5;
Thirdly, that evidence given by certain Customs Officers of interviews with individual accused should have been excluded on the ground that the replies by the accused to questions put to them were not voluntary;
Fourthly, that the officers should not have been allowed to use their notes of the interviews at all or alternatively should not have been allowed to read them;
Fifthly, that Counts 1 and 2 were statute barred.
In addition it was thought right by Barrington-Coupe's advisers to include in his notice of appeal a number of allegations against the trial Judge of unfairness in a number of respects and of impatience with the conduct of the defence and with many points raised by them.
Mr. Muir Hunter did not in the end seek to support any of those grounds in this Court.
Having read many volumes of the transcript and observed the unfailing patience and courtesy of the trial Judge in dealing with numbers of often ill-founded and lengthy sub-missions, this Court is astonished that anybody could have thought it right to include such grounds in the notice.
To understand the case against these Appellants it is necessary to state very shortly the general scheme of the Purchase Tax legislation so far as relevant to the understanding of this case.
-
(a) Transistor wireless sets are chargeable goods for Purchase Tax. An importer of such sets may pay tax on import-ation and is then free to sell at tax paid price to anyone he pleases.
-
(b) An importer who has been granted a restricted registration by the Customs may import tax free but may not by the terms of his registration sell to anyone except a register-ed trader.
-
(c) A registered trader may sell to anyone but when he sells to an unregistered trader, he must include tax in the price and in due course account for such tax to the Customs.
In this case, Simmonds' two companies Hampden (Sales) and Hampden (Electronics) Ltd., had restricted registration only.
Barrington-Coupe's two companies, Barrington-Coupe Ltd. and Delta were fully registered.
Conway's company, P. Conway Ltd. was not registered, but he controlled a firm called Sedan Press, which was fully registered.
Cohen and Orwell controlled Master Records Ltd., which was not registered at all.
In this case all the charges revolved round Simmonds' determination to sell wireless sets imported tax free to un-registered traders at tax paid prices contrary to the conditions of his restricted registration and to defraud the Customs of tax.
It is of course true that a dominant feature of the proceedings, and a matter naturally stressed by each of the Appellant's Counsel in turn, was the length of the trial. So long was it that it has been stated that only once before has there been one which took longer – the Tichborne trial. It has been designated by many adjectives, such as "massive" "marathon" and "monster", and there is no doubt that its very duration cast an inordinate burden both on the presiding Judge, the Jury, and all others who took part in the trial. This Court has viewed the factor of length with grave concern.
Whenever a trial assumes such proportions the risk is greatly increased of injustice being done because individual cases get buried under the weight of a mass of material – and there is a proportionate need for extra care in the conduct of the trial. Moreover the longer the trial the higher the chances that some jurors may become casualties or the subject of attempted subornation. Thus in the present case there were at the end only 10 jurors left in good health, and during the concluding stages there was an attempt to bribe one of them. It is thus essential – quite apart from the factor of expense where public funds have to bear not only the cost of the prosecution but also to pay through Legal Aid for solicitors and two Counsel for several Defendants – to consider at an appropriate point in this judgment what steps can be taken to reduce to a minimum, indeed if possible to eliminate, the chances of a recurrence of such abnormal proceedings.
For that purpose it is naturally necessary to try and analyse the main factors which led to what occurred in the present case. As a preliminary it is to be noted the ever mounting intricacy of the legislation imposing taxes has been followed by ever increasing ingenuity on the part of numbers of persons conspiring together fraudulently to evade the taxation. Such are the complexities of these fraudulent schemes and the devices used in them that only too often the only way that the interests of justice can he served is by presenting to a jury with the aid of schedules an overall picture of the scheme and charging a conspiracy to cheat and defraud. Obviously every effort should be made to present instead to the Jury a relatively small series of substantive offences – but that cannot always be done and this case was one of those where only a conspiracy charge can provide for the protection of the interests of the community when once the legislature produces intricate laws.
It follows also that only too often charges of defrauding the Revenue (be it of purchase tax or other tax) involve months of complex investigations: this is especially the case when, as here, several individuals and several companies are concerned, and proper records have either not been kept at all or are so kept as to present an incomplete or false picture. Such investigations necessarily involve the Revenue Officers in long multiple examinations of records, followed in turn by protracted interviews in which large numbers of questions have to be asked as to the documents under investigation. The documents themselves are often bound to be voluminous in order that the appropriate details may be established with that formality needed in a criminal trial; but a very great deal can be done and has here been done to reduce the number that have to be looked at by the Jury by the compilation of schedules from which the overall position can readily be seen. Little, however, can be done to reduce the length of interviews.
In the present case clear and full schedules were...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
R v Stewart (D)
...2 All E.R. 1222, applied. (20) R. v. Sawoniuk, [2000] 2 Cr. App. R. 220; [2000] Crim. L.R. 506, referred to. (21) R. v. Simmonds, [1969] 1 Q.B. 685; [1967] 2 All E.R. 399, applied. (22) Verrier v. D.P.P., [1967] 2 A.C. 195; [1966] 3 All E.R. 568, applied. Legislation construed: Proceeds of ......
-
R v Kalia
...I ventured to remind him what was said in this Court by Mr. Justice Fenton Atkinson (as he then was) in Simmonds and others 51 Criminal Appeal Reports 316 at page 331. The Court consisted of Lord Justice Sachs, Mr. Justice Fenton Atkinson and Mr. Justice James (as ha then was). I will read ......
- Butera v Director Ofpublic Prosecutions (Vic)
-
Kuwait Oil Tanker Company S.a.k and Another (Plaintiffs) Abdul Fattah Sulaiman Khaled Al Bader and Others (Defendants) H. Clarkson & Company Ltd and Others (Third Parties)
...from it. In support of that proposition he referred me to certain authorities in the field of criminal law, in particular R v Simmons [1969] 1 Q.B. 685 in which Fenton-Atkinson J. said at page 696 "Of course, if two men agree on a particular day to embark on a course of criminal conduct ove......
-
The Quick and the Dead: Who Counts as a ‘Person’ under S. 100 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003?
...he can and should exercise in the interests of justice as a whole a proper discretion so as not toprolong cases unnecessarily’: Simmonds [1967] 3 WLR 367 at 373, per FentonAtkinson ‘[W]e have thought it right in this judgment to remind trial judges of their duty to curb irrelevancy and to t......
-
CONSPIRACY CHARGE
...If a conspiracy is formed and a person joins it afterwards, he is equally guilty with the original conspirators. See: R. v. Simmonds (1969) 1 Q.B. 685." - Per Udoma, J.S.C. in Gregory Godwin Daboh & Anor. v. The State Suit No. S.C. 402/1975; (1977) 11 N.S.C.C. 309 at 319; (1977) 5 S.C. ......