R v Uxbridge Magistrates Court ex parte Patel v R v City of London Magistrates Court ex parte Cropper
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Simon Brown,Mr Justice Turner |
| Judgment Date | 26 November 1999 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1999] EWHC J1126-7 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 26 November 1999 |
| Docket Number | Case Nos: CO/1547/99 |
[1999] EWHC J1126-7
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEENS BENCH DIVISION
DIVISIONAL COURT
Lord Justice Simon Brown and
Mr Justice Turner
Case Nos: CO/1547/99
CO/2737/99
In Patel: Mr N. Blake QC and Mr S. Fidler (instructed by Stephen Fidler & Co) for the Appellant
Mr M. Kimsey (instructed by Crown Prosecution Service, Harrow) for the Respondent
In Cropper: Mr N. Blake QC and Mr A. Bodnar (instructed by Whitelock & Storr, Solicitors) for the Appellant
Mr D. Howker and Mr C. Foulkes (instructed by Solicitor, Customs and Excise) for the Respondent
Part 1 of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 (the Act) applies in relation to alleged offences into which no criminal investigation has begun before 1 April 1997 (the appointed day). Can it ever not apply to offences allegedly committed after the appointed day? If so, in what circumstances does it not apply to such offences? Those are the central questions of law raised by each of these two applications.
The two applicants, let me explain at once, are charged with a number of offences, some allegedly committed before, and some after, the appointed day. Each applicant appeared before an examining magistrate with a view to his being committed for trial, Patel at the Uxbridge Magistrates Court on 20 January 1999, Cropper at the City of London Court on 20 and 21 May 1999.
The Act, besides introducing a new scheme for disclosure of documents and other materials, and a new code of practice for criminal investigations, substitutes for the provisions of the Magistrates' Courts' Act 1980 a new regime of paper committals. By the relevant commencement order ( SI 1997 No.683) this new committal regime was to have effect "in relation to any alleged offence in relation to which Part I of [the] Act applies." Sub-sections 3 and 4 of s.1 of the Act provide:
"(3) This Part applies in relation to alleged offences into which no criminal investigation has begun before the appointed day.
(4) For the purposes of this section a criminal investigation is an investigation which police officers or other persons have a duty to conduct with a view to it being ascertained —
a. whether a person should be charged with an offence, or
b. whether a person charged with an offence is guilty of it."
In both cases the magistrate ruled as a matter of law that with regard to the various offences alleged to have occurred after 1 April 1997 a criminal investigation could not have been begun before that date so that those later charges had to be the subject of a new-style committal i.e. live evidence could not be adduced in respect of them. That ruling was in each case based upon the magistrate's understanding of the effect of this court's judgment in R v Norfolk Stipendiary Magistrates ex parte Keable (transcript 29 January 1998, briefly reported in 1998 Crim.L.R. 510). In the result, the magistrate in Patel's case ruled that there would be (at some future date) a hybrid committal, live evidence being adduced in support of the earlier charge, and written evidence in support of the later charges. In Cropper's case two committals were directed: the first an old-style committal with oral evidence, the second a paper committal under the new regime; the applicant was duly committed under both.
Mr Blake QC appears on behalf of both applicants to challenge those rulings. He submits first that both magistrates misunderstood Keable, alternatively that Keable was wrongly decided. He further submits that where, as in these cases, a person falls to be committed for trial on a series of offences, it is in each case a question of fact for the magistrate whether in relation to the later offences the investigation should properly be held to have begun before or after the appointed day.
With that brief introduction let me turn to the facts of these two cases as briefly as may be.
Patel
Mr Patel was a Department of Social Security fraud investigator who as part of his job interviewed persons suspected of fraud at their homes. On 22 February 1997 he visited an Eileen Connor and as a result of the investigation took away her benefit books. The following day Miss Connor telephoned the police and made a complaint that Mr Patel had undone his trouser zip, made sexual suggestions, and later grabbed her bottom and asked her to lift her top. She said he also offered her £10 for sex and offered to sort her claim out quickly. She reported the matter to the DSS as well but was made to feel guilty and was also assured she would only be visited by two people in future, so withdrew her allegation. She therefore did not make a statement until 19 August 1998. This allegation became the subject of count 1, indecent assault.
On 15 August 1998 a Veronica Colomb made a complaint that on 12 August 1998 at the DSS office the applicant had demanded £400 in return for filling in false details as to her receipt of family credit and income support. This became count 2, a charge of blackmail.
On 13 August 1998 a Michelle Elsworth made a complaint to the police that earlier that day the applicant had offered to reduce her debt to the Department in return for sexual favours. This became the third count, one of attempting to procure a woman to have sexual intercourse by threats.
The applicant was interviewed in relation to all matters on 21 August, and charged with all three offences.
At the hearing before the stipendiary magistrate on 20 January 1999, Mr Kimsey outlined three possible views which the court might take with regard to the application of s.1(3) of the Act. The first of those was that "all three counts are in effect a series of offences and therefore part of the same investigation and therefore as this commenced prior to April 1997 the committal proceedings should be carried out in their entirety under the old law." As stated, the magistrate ruled that such a view was not open to him as a matter of law. Mr Kimsey now submits that he was right so to rule, alternatively that in any event it would be impossible to conclude on the facts that the initial brief investigation into the first complaint (before it was withdrawn) was part and parcel of the same investigation as was conducted into the second and third complaint. The other two possible views which Mr Kimsey had suggested were:
"2) Counts 2 and 3 are post criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996, whereas Count 1 was before the Act and under the strict interpretation of the law a single committal could occur allowing live evidence to be called with respect to Count 1 alone.
3) Count 1 should be severed from Counts 2 and 3 and two separate committals should occur applying different procedures at each committal"
Cropper
Mr Cropper was charged with thirty-four offences relating to alleged money laundering involving some £9 million. Seventeen charges alleged offences in relation to the Drug Trafficking Act 1994 (DTA); seventeen were mirror charges alleging offences in relation to the Criminal Justice Act 1988 ( CJA). They were as follows:
(i) Conspiracy to convert property representing the proceeds either of drug trafficking or of other criminal conduct between 1 January 1995 and 31 December 1997 for the purpose of assisting another to avoid prosecution for either drug trafficking or another criminal offence. (The first conspiracy)
(ii) Six pairs of substantive charges alleging offences contrary to either s.49(2)(b) of the DTA or s.93(C)(2)(b) of the CJA, said to be samples of the criminal conduct alleged in the first conspiracy.
(iii) Conspiracy as above but with a different co-conspirator between 1 October 1997 and 12 February 1999. (The second conspiracy)
(iv) Eight pairs of substantive charges as above, said to be samples of the criminal conduct alleged in the second conspiracy.
(v) One pair of substantive charges alleging offences of concealment of property contrary to either s.49(2)(a) of the DTA or s.93C(2)(a) of the CJA.
Mr Blake points out that there was a three month overlap between the two conspiracy charges, each of them including the period 1 October to 31 December 1997. He draws our attention also to the surveillance log which discloses, for example, entries made both on 25 February 1997 and 15 May 1997, i.e. on either side of the appointed day. He submits that this was one continuous seamless investigation and that it would have been possible to charge all the offences as a single conspiracy (a wheel conspiracy); indeed, the split into two is really only for ease of trial.
Mr Howker, for his part, submits that there were in fact here two separately indentifiable series of offences distinguished by different conspirators, different bureaux de change, and different time-spans, there being a five month gap between the last transaction within the first series of offences and the first transaction within the second series.
So much for the facts of these individual cases. Their relevance and effect, of course, must depend upon the answers to the central questions of law which I posed at the outset and to which I now turn.
First it is necessary to return to the Act to note certain provisions in Part II, the Part governing criminal investigations. I begin with s.22(1) which introduces Part II:
"(1) For the purposes of this Part a criminal investigation is an investigation conducted by police officers with a view to it being ascertained —
(a) whether a person should be charged with an offence, or
(b) whether a person charged...
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