R v Terence Adams
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 09 April 2008 |
| Neutral Citation | [2008] EWCA Crim 914 |
| Date | 09 April 2008 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Docket Number | No: 200701887/A9 |
[2008] EWCA Crim 914
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Latham
(The Vice-president of the CACD)
Mr Penry-davey
Mr Justice Foskett
No: 200701887/A9
Mr G Cox QC & Mr C Benson appeared on behalf of the_ Appellant
Mr A Mitchell QC & Ms F Schutzer Wetssman appeared on behalf of the Crown
THE VICE PRESIDENT: On 6th February 2007 in the Crown Court at Blackfriars before His Honour Judge Pontius, the appellant pleaded guilty on rearraignment to a count of conspiracy to conceal the proceeds of criminal conduct. It may perhaps be relevant just to identify the precise terms of that count at the outset. It charged this appellant, together with others, of conspiring to “conceal or disguise property which in whole or part directly or indirectly represented proceeds of relevant criminal conduct of [the appellant] with intention of avoiding prosecution for an offence to which Part 6 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 applies or for the purpose of avoiding or enforcing this case of a confiscation order.”
The matter was adjourned for sentence. On 9th March 2007 he was sentenced, firstly, to a sentence of 7 years' imprisonment. A confiscation order was made against him in the sum of £750,000 pursuant to section 71 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, with a default period of 4 years' imprisonment to be served consecutively to the substantive sentence. He was also ordered to pay £50,000 prosecution costs and a recovery of defence cost order was made. That was the subject of judicial review proceedings which have been heard at the same time as this appeal and in which a judgment will be given tomorrow morning.
The order for defence costs was subsequently quantified in the sum of £4,606,057.85, following an investigation by the Special Investigation Unit. That sum was identified at a hearing which ultimately took place on 21st May 2007, when he was also made subject to a financial reporting order, pursuant to section 76 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, for 10 years. He appeals against his sentence by leave of the Single Judge.
The background facts are as follows. The appellant was for a significant period of time a highly successful career criminal and was well known as such. By his basis of plea it is plain that he was asserting, and it was accepted by the prosecution, that the criminality in question had ceased in or about 1993. The basis of plea was as follows:
(a) I will plead guilty to count 10 only excluding drugs on the basis of a full fact opening.
(b) The prosecution will not undermine any suggestion that the criminality which created the funds was 5 to 6 years before 1998 (consequently the defence will mitigate on the basis that although money from crime was laundered in accordance with the time frame in count 10, no other crime has been committed since 5 to 6 years before 1998).
(c) The prosecution are content for the defence to mitigate on the basis that the total value of the criminal activity at the time of offences was £1 million.
(d) Confiscation —figure for realisable assets is £750,000.
(e) Prosecution costs £50,000.”
The appellant had clearly amassed a considerable fortune by the time of the end of his criminal activity and it was expended on a lavish life-style which involved, according to the prosecution, significant numbers of first class flights to different destinations around the world, expensive jewellery, private education for his child and the acquisition of antiques works of art and other property. When he was ultimately arrested on 30th April 2003 his home, Fallowfields, was a large property in a desirable area of North London. The police found substantial quantities of valuable property and the clear indications were that the appellant had been able to maintain his life-style because of the criminal activities in question.
The appellant had paid no income tax for a significant period. There was an investigation into his position in 1995, and eventually in 1996 he agreed to pay a £95,000 settlement, covering his tax liabilities. But that was on the basis of false information that he had provided. It then became apparent to him that he would have, in some way or another, to account in a way which would satisfy the authorities for the wealth that he had amassed. It was in those circumstances that he obtained the assistance of others in order to disguise the proceeds of crime.
It was principally done through sham companies that were set up, in particular Skye Consultancy Limited and Clouds Consultancy Limited, which gave him effectively bogus employment and an apparent income generated by the companies on the basis that he was some form of consultant. The precise details of the way in which those companies were operated is not of any materiality for the purposes of the sentencing exercise. Suffice it to say that means were found to enable an apparently honest source of income to be developed over a substantial period of time. Indeed, the prosecution case was, in reality, that the whole of the period from 1996 onwards was a period in which the appellant was seeking, by bogus means, to hide the way in which he had come by his money.
Although, at the end of the day, the prosecution were prepared to accept the basis of plea, it remains to some extent uncertain what the full extent of the financial situation was or indeed is. Nonetheless the judge was prepared to sentence the appellant on the basis of the matters which were accepted by the prosecution in that basis of plea.
It should be said that the basis of plea was put forward in February 2007, that is shortly before the plea was entered, against the background that a year earlier counsel then acting on behalf of the appellant had been to see the judge in chambers, in order to ask for an indication as to the sentence that might be imposed whatever the outcome of the trial might be. In other words the sentence irrespective of plea and personal mitigation.
The relevant part of the transcript that we have appears at pages 10 and 11 and reads as follows:
“MR BURKE: I know it is very difficult and judges' practices tend to vary in my experience. The middle range can cover with a 14 year maximum five to eight or five to 10 years but to an individual defendant contemplating his position, fairly realistically nobody is expecting a sentence of nothing less than 5 years. So we can pretty much work out what the bottom limit would be. But if he asked and inevitably he will: what sort of sentence am I facing?
JUDGE PONTIUS: I think I can help to this extent. On everything I know thus far, and with the benefit of looking at the authorities as you rightly surmise a sentence would not be below five, and indeed I say the lower end likely to be seven, top end ten.
MR BURKE: That is without hearing any mitigation from me.
JUDGE PONTIUS: Yes.”
It should be said that, at that stage, the question that was being posed by counsel was on the basis of the possibility of a plea not simply to the count to which he ultimately pleaded but also to a second count of money laundering in respect of the proceeds of crime of a relative.
The judge, when he came to sentence the appellant, on 9th March 2007, had submissions before him to the effect that the sentence should reflect the fact that this was money laundering of an unusual nature in one sense, namely this was not money laundering by someone who was seeking to help a criminal to dispose of the proceeds of crime and to continue his criminal activity, but was the activity of a criminal who had changed his ways and was leading a perfectly honest life, in order to enable him to retain the proceeds of his criminal activity. It was submitted that he was entitled to credit for the plea of guilty, albeit late, because the costs of a substantial trial would be saved, a substantial trial expected to last some 4 to 5 months, in which it was proposed that there should be jury protection, and accordingly, although there had been a substantial amount of preparatory work up until the time of the plea, nonetheless the plea had had a significant effect in relation to the saving of public funds, which is one of the purposes of granting credit...
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