R v Gooch
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 16 January 1998 |
| Date | 16 January 1998 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
Court of Appeal, Criminal Division
Before Lord Justice Buxton, Mr Justice Maurice Kay and Judge Coles, QC
Practice - hearing appeal of prison absconder - exceptional circumstances
Where a person had been given leave to appeal against conviction or sentence but had absconded before the hearing of the appeal, the normal practice of the Court of Appeal was either to adjourn the appeal or to dismiss it, according to the justice of the case.
Exceptionally, however, an appeal could be listed for hearing in the absence of the appellant where instructions to lawyers had not been withdrawn and no further instructions were required to enable the appeal to be pursued.
The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, so held in refusing an application by the Crown to determine the appeal against sentence of Malcolm George Gooch in respect of his conviction in May 1993 at Chelmsford Crown Court (Judge Beaumont, QC and a jury) of being knowingly concerned in the importation of a controlled class B drug, 1,200kg of cannabis valued at £2,646,000, for which he was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment and, following proceedings under the Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1986, a confiscation order in the sum of £650,000.
Mr David Lederman, QC, assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals, for the appellant; Mr David Barnard and Mr Barry G Gregory for the Crown.
LORD JUSTICE BUXTON, giving the judgment of the court, said that the appellant had been granted leave to appeal against both conviction and sentence, including the confiscation order.
In May 1995 the appeal against conviction was dismissed but the question of appeal against sentence was adjourned for consideration at a later date. The appellant then absconded from prison and remained unlawfully at large. The case was stayed pending his recapture.
The Crown sought determination, one way or the other, of the outstanding appeal against sentence because, by section 11 of the 1986 Act, they were unable to enforce the restraint orders and other orders that they held in respect of the part of the appellant's property which represented the sum of £650,000 which was to be confiscated, while it remained subject to appeal.
In considering what action it should take the court had been referred toR v FlowerELR ([1966] 1 QB 146), a case in which there were three appellants, one of whom, Eric Flower, had absconded from prison. Despite the fact that Eric Flower was neither present nor...
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Crown Prosecution Service and another v Gohil and another
...and other articles obtained as a result of the letters of request, even where they have been adduced in evidence in open court. In R v Gooch [1999] Cr App R (S) 283, part of the evidence relied on by the Crown in confiscation proceedings was obtained pursuant to letters of request. The lett......
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Benedetto v The Queen (No 2)
...of Appeal has a discretion, in exceptional circumstances, to hear an appeal in the appellant's absence when he has escaped from custody: R v Gooch [1998] 2 Cr App R 130. But the European Court of Human Rights has held that a restriction on the right of an appellant to pursue an appeal wher......
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Varsha P (Applicant/Claimant) v Bhadresh P (Respondent/Defendant)
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R v Charles Okedare
...for an applicant who had absconded, on the basis that that the solicitors were "without proper instructions". 5 Yet, in Gooch [1998] 2 Cr App R 130, in what it described as an "exceptional case", the Court found no difficulty in proceeding to hear an appeal where leave to appeal conviction ......