R v Louis Anthony Cooper
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Coulson |
| Judgment Date | 19 June 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 1152 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | No: 201301967 A6 |
| Date | 19 June 2013 |
[2013] EWHC 1152 (Admin)
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Fulford
Mr Justice Coulson
Recorder of Westminster
His Honour Judge McCreath
(Sitting as a judge of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division)
No: 201301967 A6
Mr S C Newcombe (Solicitor Advocate) appeared on behalf of the Appellant
Miss B Rose appeared on behalf of the Crown
The appellant is 26. On 6th March 2013, at the Crown Court at Leicester, he pleaded guilty to one count (count 6 on the indictment) of transferring criminal property contrary to section 327 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. In everyday language, that was an offence of money laundering. On 12th April he was sentenced by Mr Recorder Buckland to a term of 18 months' imprisonment. He appeals against that sentence with the leave of the single judge.
The appellant was involved in a relatively sophisticated criminal operation. His name was used for a website, Cooper's Cars, which advertised in motoring magazines and purported to offer motor cars for sale. Purchasers paid sums, sometimes large sums, by way of deposit into the appellant's bank account. A total of £20,300 has been identified. The vehicles did not exist and the prospective purchasers lost their money.
The prosecution originally maintained that the appellant was the person behind the fraudulent scheme. That explains why he was charged with counts 1 to 5, which were five counts of fraud. He pleaded not guilty to those counts and his trial was set for 31st October 2012. That trial fixture had to be vacated because of a lack of court time. However, during that day, and for the first time, the Crown indicated that they would accept a plea to money laundering. The appellant did not initially agree to that because he had maintained his complete innocence throughout. However, subsequently he changed his mind and eventually, a month or so before the re-fixed hearing in April 2013, the appellant's case was re-listed, and at that re-listed hearing he pleaded guilty to the new count 6, which was the count of money laundering.
The plea was not the subject of a basis of plea, but it appears to have been offered on the basis that the appellant had allowed his bank account to be used for the fraud, and that, although he had quickly realised that the transactions were part of a fraudulent scheme, he had continued to allow that account to be used for that purpose. He accepted that he had withdrawn the money paid in in cash and then paid it out to a third party, actions that he must have known were criminal.
The Crown accepted the plea because they acknowledged that they could not say that the appellant was the instigator of the fraud. In addition, as was expressly conceded, there was no direct contact between the appellant and the complainants.
In sentencing the appellant, the learned Recorder said:
"The prosecution have opened the case with care and I remind myself that there is no evidence to formally link you with the setting up of the website and, as I have already said, you are not to be sentenced for the commission of the frauds themselves. What I am asked to consider and rightly so on the basis of the case of R v Monfries [2004] 2 Cr App R (S) 3 is the degree of knowledge that you may have had of the frauds themselves and the proximity that you have had to those activities. Even though you were not to be sentenced on the basis that you were directly responsible for them, the facts are these, that the website was called Cooper's...
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