England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London, WC2A 2LL
		Monday, 21 April 2008

1. MR JUSTICE MADDISON: During the first part of 2007 the applicant, Raja Parvez Iqbal, who is 43 years of age, appeared before the Crown Court in Sheffield in relation to five indictments. Indictment No 1 had two counts. Taken together they charged the applicant, Richard Gordon and Richard Anthony Blake with conspiracy to transfer the proceeds of drug trafficking and to transfer criminal property between 3rd January 2000 and 24th December 2004 -- although Mr Rosario on the applicant's behalf informs us today, and we accept, that the evidence pointed to the applicant's involvement having begun in or about November 2001. In reality the two counts represented one continuous course of activity involving the transfer of sums of money from the United Kingdom to Jamaica by way of a money laundering operation. There were two counts because during the period concerned one Act of Parliament, making such conduct illegal, the Drug Trafficking Act 1984, was replaced by another, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, which had the same effect.
2. Following a trial in April 2007 the applicant was convicted of both counts by a jury. The co-accused Gordon pleaded guilty on rearraignment to count 2 alone and no evidence was offered against him in respect of count 1. The co-accused Richard Blake pleaded guilty to both counts and indeed gave evidence for the prosecution against the applicant.
3. Indictment No 2 contained three counts. Counts 1 and 2 charged the applicant, Telita Maria Fowler and Robert Alexander Fowler with conspiracies similar to and between the same dates as those charged in indictment No 1. In addition Robert Fowler was charged in count 3 with possessing criminal property, namely £590 in cash. The applicant was convicted by a jury of counts 1 and 2, following a trial ending on 2nd May 2007. Telita Fowler pleaded guilty to counts 1 and 2. Robert Fowler was convicted by the jury of all three counts.
4. Indictment No 3 charged the applicant with further similar offences, but that indictment was ordered as against him to lie on the file on the usual terms.
5. In indictment No 4 the applicant was the only defendant. There were 17 counts. Counts 1 and 2 were ordered to lie on the file on the usual terms, but following a third trial, this one during May 2007, the applicant was convicted by the jury of counts 3 to 17. All were counts of conspiracy to transfer the proceeds of drug trafficking or criminal property between the same dates as those stated in the earlier indictments. The conspiracies in indictment 4 were all charged as conspiracies with a person or persons unknown. Six different false addresses were used in the course of those conspiracies, as was information wrongfully obtained from three passports.
6. In indictment No 5 the applicant was one of seven defendants. There were two counts again charging conspiracy to transfer the proceeds of drug trafficking and criminal property, this time between 3rd January 2000 and 20th March 2005. Three of the defendants, including the applicant, were charged in count 1 and all seven were charged in count 2. The applicant was convicted of both counts following a trial ending on 6th July 2007. One of the other six defendants was acquitted by the jury. As to the other five, Carl Anthony Hinds pleaded guilty on rearraignment to both counts. Jennifer Elaine Hazel pleaded guilty on rearraignment to both counts. Aron McKenzie Hines and Nathaniel Wynter pleaded guilty to count 2, the only count concerning them. Princess Elizabeth Strodder was convicted by the jury of count 2, the only count concerning her.
7. It is necessary to refer briefly to yet further indictments. In indictment No 6 Carl Hinds was charged with conspiracy to supply crack cocaine to another person. He pleaded guilty. In indictment No 7 another defendant, Natalie Jane Czerwinski, faced 15 counts of transferring criminal property and two of possessing a controlled drug with intent to supply. After a trial she was convicted by the jury of 12 of the counts of transferring criminal property and of both of the drugs offences.
8. It has been necessary to refer to all of the defendants associated with the applicant because reference is made to them and to the sentences received by some of them in the course of the submissions made on the applicant's behalf.
9. On 20th September 2007 the applicant was sentenced by His Honour Judge Robertshaw, who had presided over all of the trials, to serve 11 years' imprisonment concurrently on each of the counts, there being 21 in all, of which the applicant had been convicted. A substantial confiscation order was also made in his case.
10. Richard Gordon was sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment. Richard Blake was sentenced to a total of five years' imprisonment. A substantial confiscation order was made in his case and he was recommended for deportation. Telita Maria Fowler received a total sentence of two years' imprisonment and a confiscation order was made. Robert Fowler was sentenced to a total of four years' imprisonment and recommended for deportation. A substantial confiscation order was made in his case also. Carl Anthony Hinds received a total of eight years' imprisonment, of which five years was for the offences charged in indictment No 5, with three years consecutively for the offence in indictment No 6. A substantial confiscation order was also made in his case and he too was recommended for deportation. Jennifer Hazel and Aron Hines were each sentenced to 16 months' imprisonment. Nathaniel Wynter received 10 months' imprisonment suspended for two years and Princess Elizabeth Strodder received three months' imprisonment suspended for two years. Natalie Czerwinski was sentenced to a total of two years nine months' imprisonment of which 15 months related to the transfer of criminal property and 18 months consecutively to the drugs charges.
11. The applicant applies for an extension of time of about two weeks in which to renew his application for leave to appeal against his total sentence of 11 years' imprisonment following refusal by the single judge. We grant the extension of time.
12. Despite the complexity of the indictments, the circumstances of the offences were comparatively straightforward. The applicant was the proprietor of a newsagents shop in Sheffield. From these premises he conducted numerous international money transfers through franchises known as Western Union and later Money Gram. Each transfer was effected by the completion of a "send" form and the handing over of a sum of money by the client concerned. An equivalent amount of money would then become available almost immediately to a named person in a nominated country.
13. During the periods charged in the indictments the applicant used this mechanism to facilitate the transfer to Jamaica of sums of money he knew to be the proceeds of drug trafficking. He did this over a period of at least three years and on a very substantial scale. False addresses and details obtained from stolen passports were used in connection with some of the transfers. The co-accused Hinds was a regular user of the applicant's services. Hinds would use details of various friends and associates, who became co-conspirators, to send money on his behalf. On some occasions the applicant himself would provide false passports and false details of this kind and would actively encourage some of the transferors to use his agency. In all, the applicant was involved in 1,523 separate transfers of money, totalling just over £1 million.
14. The applicant was of previous good character. The judge had a pre-sentence report which referred to difficulties within the applicant's family in that his wife was suffering from schizophrenia and the couple had three young children. The applicant was seen as presenting a low risk of re-conviction.
15. Passing sentence, the judge made the basis on which the sentences were to be passed very clear. He said as follows:

"One of the great social evils of our age is the trafficking of dangerous class A drugs. It brings misery to so many people, to users and their families, to the victims of robbery, burglary and fraud committed by users who can only raise the money needed to satisfy their craving by resorting to crime, to honest and decent people who have the great misfortune to live in neighbourhoods blighted by the activities of drug dealers.

Drug dealing is both an abhorrent and highly lucrative activity. For many reasons drug dealers need to rid themselves of the cash proceeds of their trade and to do so early and fast. ...

Over many months at this court beginning in April of this year, a series of trials have taken place involving the laundering of the substantial cash proceeds from trafficking class A drugs on the streets of Sheffield. ...

Having listened to all of the evidence in all of those trials, I am left in no doubt that there exists a significant degree of direction and control of the Sheffield drugs trade from Jamaica. It was where drug dealers were being commissioned and sent out into the field. It was where substantial sums of money, the proceeds of drug trafficking in Sheffield, were being returned. Lifestyles which were lavish, bordering on the extravagant, were being financed in Jamaica and all of this on the back of misery to this city.

...

What all of this adds up to may be stated in one word; deterrence. Those who do what each one of you has done to a greater or lesser extent play a vital role in the whole illegal drugs trade. The principal purpose of sentencing has to be deterrence, making it clear by the message which is sent out, not only in Sheffield but to Enham Town, Jamaica, where this criminal activity appears to be largely based, that those who lend their assistance in this way are only slightly less culpable than the actual dealers and incidentally I have little doubt that before today is out the results of this case will be known in Enham Town Jamaica, because there will be those present in this courtroom ready to relay it."

16. The judge went on to indicate that he had given credit to those defendants who had pleaded guilty and had taken into account the number and value of the transactions attributed to each of the defendants. He had also taken into account the nature and extent of their individual roles.
17. Turning to this applicant individually, the judge described him as a linchpin in the entire operation with a role which was crucial and pivotal. The judge pronounced himself satisfied that the applicant knew perfectly well what was expected of him:

"Your breach of the responsibility with which you were entrusted was flagrant, calculated and chronic."

18. It is submitted that the total sentence of 11 years was manifestly excessive; and that the judge's starting point was too high, especially compared with a previous decision of this court and with the sentences received by the co-accused and in particular Blake, Fowler and Hinds. The judge, it is said, overstated the position in saying that it was possible, but only just possible, to imagine a worse case than that. Reliance is placed on the case of El-Kurd [2001] Crim.L.R 234, in which this court reduced from 14 years to 12 the sentence on a man who had transferred £70 million over a two year period. Blake and Hinds, it is observed, had been involved in transfers of £300,000 but were also directly implicated in drug trafficking. Fowler, involved in the transfer of £200,000, was said by the judge to have been close to those involved in generating the money. Finally, it was submitted that the judge attached insufficient weight to the good character of the applicant, to the personal mitigation available to him and to the modest financial benefit he was said to have received.
19. We disagree with those submissions. Having presided over all four trials the judge took the view that deterrent sentences were appropriate for the reasons which he clearly explained and which we endorse. The defendant was rightly described as the linchpin of the operation. The judge was very well placed to assess the different roles of the various defendants and it is obvious from his sentencing remarks that he did so carefully, taking into account their roles, pleas, criminal records (where applicable) and in Blake's case the fact that he had given evidence against the defendant, albeit that aspects of his evidence were considered unreliable.
20. It is right to say that the defendant in El-Kurd had transferred very much more money than this applicant, but over a shorter period, and he was sentenced specifically on the basis that he had not been proved to have laundered drugs money. In the case of Monfries [2004] 2 Cr.App.R (S) 3 this court held that it was appropriate to have some regard to the appropriate sentence for the antecedent offence when sentencing for a money laundering offence, although there was no direct correlation, and that the money launderer's knowledge of the antecedent offence is a relevant factor. In this case the antecedent offence was one of trafficking in class A drugs on a large scale and the applicant knew it.
21. For these reasons we agree with the single judge that it cannot properly be argued that the total sentence of 11 years was manifestly excessive, even though it might be seen as being towards the top end of the relevant sentencing bracket and for those reasons this application is refused.