Identifying the Criminal Conduct Giving Rise to Criminal Property

AuthorGavin A. Doig
Date01 February 2016
DOI10.1177/0022018315625509
Published date01 February 2016
Subject MatterCourt of Appeal
CLJ624200 5..16 10
The Journal of Criminal Law 80(1)
the correctness of those decisions—and every reason for Hookway and Weighman to be consigned to the
dustbin of jurisprudence at the first opportunity.
By coincidence, this note was written on the day that Channel 4 screened the first episode of its documen-
tary The Murder Detectives. The initial suspect for the stabbing was not only linked to the crime scene by
DNA on a glove, with a random match probability of one in a billion; he also had a record of knife crime,
and initially gave a ‘no comment’ interview. He was fortunate to have his alibi confirmed by an unusually
clear CCTV image. The programme is a reminder that technology does not make detection simple.
Tony Ward
Identifying the Criminal Conduct Giving Rise to Criminal
Property R v Kuchhadia [2015] EWCA Crim 1252
Keywords
Proceeds of crime, converting criminal property, tax evasion, jury unanimity
The appellant, KK, was convicted of fraud and converting criminal property. The fraud concerned KK’s
application to Barclays Bank for a mortgage of £3.9 million. The offence of converting criminal property
related to his admitted purchase of high-value motor vehicles. It was agreed that KK had paid no tax
between 2004 and 2010, when the vehicles were purchased, nor submitted tax returns either in his own
name or in the name of a company he controlled. This case note concerns only the circumstances of the
conviction for converting criminal property.
Section 327(1)(c) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (‘the Act’) simply states that a person commits
an offence if he converts criminal property. Criminal property is defined by section 340(3) which
provides:
Property is criminal property if –
a.
it constitutes a person’s benefit from criminal conduct or it represents such a benefit (in whole or
part and whether directly or indirectly), and
b.
the alleged offender knows or suspects it constitutes or represents such a benefit.
The prosecution case was that, as KK had no legitimate income, the money used to purchase the
motor vehicles arose from...

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