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England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions >> Craig, R. v [2007] EWCA Crim 2913 (15 November 2007) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2007/2913.html Cite as: [2008] Lloyd's Rep FC 358, [2007] EWCA Crim 2913 |
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CRIMINAL DIVISION
Strand London, WC2 |
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B e f o r e :
MRS JUSTICE COX
DAME HEATHER STEEL DBE
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R E G I N A | ||
-v- | ||
IAN PHILIP CRAIG |
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Mr O Oldland appeared on behalf of the Crown
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"340-(1) This section applies for the purposes of this Part.
(2) Criminal conduct is conduct which —
(a) constitutes an offence in any part of the United Kingdom, or
(b) would constitute an offence in any part of the United Kingdom if it occurred there.
(3) Property is criminal property if —
(a) it constitutes a person's benefit from criminal conduct or it represents such a benefit (in whole or part and whether directly or indirectly), and
(b) the alleged offender knows or suspects that it constitutes or represents such a benefit.
(4) It is immaterial —
(a) who carried out the conduct;
(b) who benefited from it;
(c) whether the conduct occurred before or after the passing of this Act.
(5) A person benefits from conduct if he obtains property as a result of or in connection with the conduct."
"(1) They could have concluded that the disparity between Mr Craig's legitimate sources of wealth and his apparent wealth was such that while they could not necessarily be sure that his wealth was the proceeds of any particular crime, they were sure it was the proceeds of some crime or another.
(2) They could have been sure that the property was the proceeds of theft of machinery from the Wilkinson partnership or
(3) the embezzling of money from the Peach partnership or
(4) the theft of vans from the Peach partnership or
(5) the theft of machinery from the Peach partnership.
(6) Finally they might have concluded that Mr Craig was a drug trafficker."
"In our judgment a Brown direction may be required in principle in all cases where a single judge or juror could not satisfy himself of guilt without improperly aggregating the factual allegations necessary to guilt. Thus in the context of Brown a single judge could not say to himself: I am not satisfied as to fraudulent dishonesty in the case of any single one of the alleged statements relied on by the prosecution, but there is sufficient suspicion arising from the alleged statements in aggregate to satisfy me of guilt."
"In appropriate cases prosecutions may be brought where it is not possible for the Crown to prove by direct evidence the involvement of the defendant in the commission of specific criminal offences nor the receipt of monies by him arising out of the commission of specific criminal offences. If Mr Lewin's submissions were correct then the law would actually be more restrictive than the previous legislation where the prosecution had to prove either that the money came from drug trafficking or from other criminal conduct. That difficulty has been overcome by the much wider and more general provisions of the new Act. Whilst the prosecution must prove that the property is 'criminal property' within the meaning of the statutory definition, there is nothing in the wording of the section which imports any further requirement that the property emanated from a particular crime or a specific type of criminal conduct."
"For my part I cannot discern with any clarity what the Crown's case was with respect to each count in turn - there seems to be no attempt made systematically to focus the jury. Should not the jury have been directed to consider Counts 2, 3 & 4 before considering Count 1? Again, I cannot discern the nature of the Defence case whether as a definable whole or with respect to each count. It is arguable that it has not been summed up: the Appellant's own evidence is not recited and what should have been an exposition of the Defence case becomes a recital of hitherto overlooked Prosecution evidence from the witness, Ebejer. [He was the scientific officer giving evidence about contamination of bank notes.]"