Facilitating Control of Benefit of Drug Trafficking
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002201839906300529 |
| Published date | 01 October 1999 |
| Date | 01 October 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The
Journal
of
Criminal
Law
Rv
Sandford
This appellant, also, was convicted of an offence contrary to s 18 of the
Offences against the Person Act 1861and by reason of a previous similar
offence, he qualified for an automatic life sentence; but the recorder
passed a determinate sentence of eight years. The Attorney-General
sought leave under s 36 of theCriminal Justice Act 1988 to refer the
sentence to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient, because: (1) it was
wrong in principle, as the judge was in error in finding that there were
'exceptional circumstances', .so that (2)
the
offender qualified for an
automatic life sentence, and (3) the crime was aggravated by being a
brutal
and
unprovoked attack, by
the
use of a broken glass
and
the
seriousness of the injuries. The defendant,
on
the other hand, appealed
against the sentence of eight years' imprisonment as excessive, although
he had a long history of convictions, some of which were founded on
acts of violence.
The recorder having found that there were 'exceptional circum-
stances', which justified his passing a determinate sentence, the sole
issue on appeal was whether he was in error in coming to that conclu-
sion, in the face of the defendant's alcoholism, his violence
and
his being
adanger to the public, and thus creating a risk of his re-offending in the
same way.
HELD:
1.
GRANTING
LEAVE
to the Attorney-General,
and
2.
REFUSING
LEAVE
to the defendant.
Upon
the
substantive issue, the court concluded that the brutal
nature of the offence of 'glassing' had
not
been accompanied by any
'exceptional circumstances' required by
the
Act to justify a determinate
sentence rather
than
an automatic life sentence. The court therefore
quashed the sentence of eight years' imprisonment and substituted a life
sentence.
COMMENTARY
It
will be remarked that the court applied the principles which it had
enunciated in its consideration of RvKelly (above), both as to the
substantive question of the interpretation of the provisions in the Act
relating to the life sentence
and
to the ancillary question relating to the
application of s 28.
Facilitating Control of Benefit of Drug Trafficking
R v
MacMaster
[1999] 1 Cr App R 402
Together with three co-accused, the appellant was charged with facllltat-
inganother
to retain and control benefits derived from drug trafficking
contrary to s 50( 1) of the DrugTrafficking Act 1994 and, secondly, with
conspiring to commit drug trafficking abroad contrary to s 1(1) of
the
Criminal Law Act 1977.The second charge arose
out
of his having hired
aminibus at Frankfurt airport and driven it with a large quantity of
448
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