R v Sadique (Omar) (No 2)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 05 July 2013 |
| Date | 05 July 2013 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
Court of Appeal, Criminal Division
Before Lord Judge, Lord Chief Justice, Mr Justice Openshaw and Mr Justice Griffith Williams
When a person was charged with the offence of encouraging or as-sisting offences believing one or more would be committed it was not necessary for the Crown to prove that he had a specific belief about the particular offence which those he was encouraging or assist-ing would commit.
The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, so held when dismissing an appeal by Omar Sadique against his conviction at Maidstone Crown Court on February 21, 2012, before Judge Gold, QC and a jury, of assist-ing in the supply of controlled drugs of Class A and Class B, contrary to section 46 of the Ser ious Crime Act 2007.
The appellant's national distri-bution business supplied chemicals such as benzocaine and lignocaine. Although possession of such chem-icals was not unlawful the Crown alleged that he supplied them to drug dealers and to distributors of cutting agents. The defendant claimed that he ran a legitimate business and had no idea that they were being sold for misuse as cut-ting agents in the drugs trade. No business records, client lists or de-livery records, however, were ever discovered or produced.
Section 46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 provides: "(1) A person commits an offence if âÇö (a) he does an act capable of encouraging or as-sisting the commission of one or more of a number of offences; and (b) he believes âÇö (i) that one or more of those offences will be com-mitted (but has no bel ief as to which); and (ii) that his act will en-courage or assist the commission of one or more of them. (2) It is imma-terial for the purposes of subsection (1)(b)(ii) whether the person has any belief as to which offence will be encouraged or assisted.
Mr Michael Mansfield, QC and Mr Gelaga King (assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals) for the defendant; Mr Allister Walker for the Crown.
THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE said, in the reserved judgment of the court, that the issue in the ap-peal was the ambit of section 46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007.
The Court of Appeal had ana-lysed what were described as the in-gredients of a section 46 offence on an appeal against a ruling in a preparatory hearing for the trial of the present defendant: see R v Sad-iqueWLR ([2012] 1 WLR 1700). Their Lordships were concerned that in the analysi s in paragraph 49 of that judgment it appeared that...
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