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England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions >> Quinn & Ors, R v [2012] EWCA Crim 665 (19 March 2012)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2012/665.html
Cite as: [2012] EWCA Crim 665
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CRIMINAL DIVISION
Strand London, WC2A 2LL |
||
B e f o r e :
(SIR JOHN THOMAS)
MR JUSTICE TREACY
MR JUSTICE HADDON-CAVE
____________________
| R E G I N A | ||
| v | ||
| THOMAS ALAN QUINN | ||
| STEPHEN CARROLL | ||
| SHAUN CHRISTOPHER WILKINSON |
____________________
WordWave International Limited
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(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
Mr M Davies appeared on behalf of the Appellant Carroll Mr A Davies appeared on behalf of the Appellant Wilkinson
____________________
Crown Copyright ©
- MR JUSTICE TREACY: These appeals come before the court by the leave of the single judge. At the outset of this judgment we would like to thank counsel for their succinct but well focused submissions - it has been a refreshing change from some of the material we have had to deal with in this court today.
- On 22nd September 2011 in the Crown Court at Newcastle these three appellants pleaded guilty: Quinn pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of criminal property, namely the sum of £5,720 in cash. That was a charge brought pursuant to section 329(1)(c) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. On 21st October 2011 he was sentenced to a term of 18 months' imprisonment. Wilkinson pleaded guilty to a count alleging being concerned in the supply of cannabis. He was sentenced on 21st October 2011 to 2 years' imprisonment. Carroll pleaded guilty to three counts: count 3, conspiracy to supply a controlled drug namely amphetamine; count 4, conspiracy to supply a controlled drug namely cannabis and count 12, being concerned in supplying a controlled drug of Class C, Benzylpiperazine (BZP). He received in all a term of 2 years' imprisonment.
- The evidence revealed a number of individuals involved in illegal drug supply in the northeast of England in 2009 and 2010. It was said that police operations had enabled over £1 million worth of drugs to be recovered. The ultimate pleas of those before the court reflected a significant withdrawal by the Crown from its initial position, as indicated in the case summary and the indictment as originally put forward.
- The two major players before the court were McNally and Morgan. Other offenders playing different roles in the case were also to be dealt with. These appellants are lower down the chain of involvement. In the cases of Quinn and Wilkinson they have only pleaded guilty to substantive offences. As will be seen there are no counts common to these three appellants.
- McNally was at the centre of the conspiracies to supply substantial quantities of drugs of classes A, B and C, in the northeast, between January 2009 and May 2010. He had a legitimate business, DCA Commercials, which he used as cover for his drug dealing operations. Wilkinson was an employee of DCA. McNally led a lavish life-style. His income greatly exceeded that which he declared to the Revenue. Analysis of his bank statements showed personal expenditure between 2005 and 2010 exceeding £400,000 on a declared income of only £78,000.
- McNally was linked to a number of drug dealers including a man called Morgan. There was a web of connections and contacts between McNally, other drug dealers and appellants in this this case and other co-accused.
- McNally pleaded guilty to charges against him and was sentenced to a total of 6 years' imprisonment, which included 1 year consecutive for an offence of dangerous driving whilst he was trying to outrun the police with some drugs in his possession.
- In June 2009 Morgan's house was raided. Police recovered drugs paraphernalia and drugs with a street value of about £250,000. They comprised 23 kilos of amphetamine, 170 grams of cannabis, some cocaine, 2500 ecstasy tablets and 30,000 BZP tablets. BZP is a drug commonly sold as ecstasy.
- The appellant, Quinn, lived near Morgan. He was seen driving the van later used by Morgan and his fingerprints were on a number of items found in Morgan's house. Morgan was sentenced to 7 years' imprisonment for possession with intent to supply drugs of classes A, B and C.
- Turning more particularly to the matters concerning these appellants, we start with Quinn. His house was searched in September 2010. £5,720 in cash was recovered. Quinn accepted that the money was criminal property and that it was the proceeds of drug dealing by Morgan. He acknowledged that he had agreed to look after it on Morgan's behalf.
- In Wilkinson's case the allegation related to 7th August 2009. On that day, acting under McNally's instructions, Wilkinson drove a van to the house of a man called Horne on McNally's behalf. The van contained a consignment of cannabis resin weighing over 23 kilos and worth £42,000.
- That same day police raided Horne's premises and recovered the cannabis. Horne was arrested. In due course his plea to a count of possession of cannabis with intent to supply was accepted on the basis that the cannabis had been effectively dumped on him to warehouse for a matter of hours.
- Prior to Horne's apprehension there was extensive telephone contact between McNally and Horne and then both before and after Horne's arrest there was telephone contact between McNally, Wilkinson and a drug dealer called Beck.
- Later on that day Beck broke into a motorcar parked at McNally's business premises. He removed a large package which must have contained drugs and drove off. He drove dangerously so as to evade the police and was able to get rid of the package on McNally's behalf. Horne, at whose home the 23 kilos of cannabis had been found was sentenced to 51 weeks suspended for 12 months.
- Carroll was involved in three counts, as already stated. They arise from offences committed on the same day, namely 8th May 2010. On that day McNally met Carroll at the Angel of the North car park. Carroll removed a box from his own vehicle and put it into McNally's vehicle. McNally then drove off. When the police tried to intercept McNally he drove dangerously to evade them. They eventually caught him and found a box in his car with 542 grams of amphetamine, 9 ounces of cannabis resin and 30,000 BZP tablets, which McNally thought was ecstasy.
- Texts exchanged between the parties make it clear that the relationships were as follows: McNally was the customer in the north east, Nuttall was a supplier from Liverpool and Carroll was the courier bringing the drugs from Liverpool to McNally in the north east. The value of the BZP tablets was about £75,000, the amphetamine and cannabis had a value of a little over £5,000.
- Carroll was stopped after the meeting. He was found to have £4,900 in his possession. That money was in the form of cash and had been given to McNally, who passed it onto Carroll to take over to Liverpool to Nuttall.
- Carroll pleaded guilty with the a of plea, saying that he had been asked by Nuttall to deliver the drugs and to bring the payment back to Liverpool, and that he was to be paid £500 for his involvement in the matter. He was not an organiser or a profit taker, he was a courier on a single occasion, with no knowledge of the wider conspiracy.
- Nuttall, at the Liverpool end of this particular transaction, also provided a basis of plea, seeking to limit his involvement to the same occasion on 8th May. He admitted the same offences as Carroll. He was sentenced to 4 years' imprisonment. Nuttall had a previous conviction for the supply of Class A drugs.
- We need also at this point to refer to another defendant, Robinson, who pleaded guilty to count 18 on the indictment, which was a charge of arranging to facilitate the acquisition of criminal property.
- Robinson had given McNally £4,000 to purchase what he thought were going to be some stolen television sets. He did not know, according to his basis of plea, that the money was to be used to purchase drugs on 8th May. He was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment suspended for 2 years. He was a man of previous good character.
- In passing sentence the judge commented in relation to Quinn's case, that the criminality of money laundering and similar offences was the encouragement and nourishment which it gave to crime.
- As far as Wilkinson was concerned, the judge accepted that Wilkinson was not a ringleader but took account of the fact that he was prepared to transport a huge consignment of cannabis for the benefit of a drug dealer. In Carroll's case, again it was accepted that he was to be sentenced on the basis that he was acting as a courier.
- As far as antecedents are concerned, Quinn is now 36. He has a substantial criminal record, with some 46 offences committed previously. His convictions do not involve drug related offences but concern a variety of matters including theft, burglary, public order and road traffic offences. Quinn was a married man with two children. He had a business which was said to be likely to collapse if he was sent to prison.
- Wilkinson is aged 26. He had no previous convictions. He impressed the probation officer as anxious and ashamed of his actions and his family were said to have been devastated by what he had done. He was particularly concerned about the impact of custody on his responsibilities as the father of a 14 month old boy.
- Carroll was 46. He has a large number of previous convictions. Only one conviction is drug related, that is a possession charge, otherwise his convictions are predominantly for offences of dishonesty. His offending was, in the assessment of the probation officer, linked to financial gain.
- The grounds of appeal in Quinn's case submit that the sentence was manifestly excessive, particularly having regard to his family circumstances, the extent of his involvement in the offence and in comparison to the suspended sentence imposed on the co-accused, Robinson.
- Wilkinson again asserts that his sentence was excessive, that the judge should have maintained parity in sentencing him with the co-accused, Horne, and that the judge failed to give sufficient weight to mitigating factors in Wilkinson's life.
- As far as Carroll was concerned, again the sentence is said to be too long, on the basis that he was involved in a single day's activity. He was not a profit taker albeit the transaction was a significantly large one, and he was only to benefit to the sum of £500. There is alleged to be, as far as the written grounds are concerned, disparity with Nuttall, Wilkinson and Hutchinson.
- Hutchinson has not yet been referred to in this judgment. He received 2 years for assisting a drug dealer called Bolam to transport 9 ounces of cocaine. He was a driver doing Mr Bolam a favour on a single occasion. His criminal record showed that his last appearances were in 1994, for offences of possession of cannabis. His basis of plea was accepted on the footing that he was unaware of the amount of drugs involved or their value and that he was to receive no benefit for what he did.
- We will deal with each of the appellants in turn starting with Quinn. The evidence revealed that Quinn was associated with Morgan in a way which showed they had contact going beyond the date of Quinn's offence in count 9. The date of the offence was the date of the search of Quinn's house.
- Quinn was in possession of nearly £6,000 in cash which represented some of the proceeds of Morgan's drug dealing and which he had agreed to look after. It seems to us that Quinn was thus very close to the source of the criminal property and playing a significant role in assisting Morgan. The court is entitled to have regard to the nature of the underlying offence in those circumstances.
- Quinn's position is not truly comparable to that of Robinson. Robinson was of prior good character, unlike Quinn, who has many previous convictions albeit not for drug offences. Robinson was involved in giving McNally £4,000 to buy what he thought were going to be stolen television sets rather than drugs. The amount of money is smaller and more significantly the crime did not, as far as Robinson was concerned involve drugs.
- In our judgment there was a clear basis for distinguishing Robinson's case from Quinn's and no tenable disparity argument arises. We are therefore not persuaded that the sentence of 18 months imposed was too long and accordingly we dismiss this appeal.
- Wilkinson delivered a very large consignment of cannabis for McNally, whose employee he was. He had pleaded guilty. He was of previous good character and he had personal mitigation in relation to his family circumstances, as reflected in the pre-sentence report. The delivery of the consignment was apparently occasioned because McNally feared a police raid and needed to move the drugs somewhere else. Wilkinson agreed to move them. In the course of his interviews the police put to Wilkinson that he was "a numpty driver" helping McNally, presumably suggesting that he was a low-level functionary under a degree of pressure.
- Wilkinson left his employment with McNally as a direct consequence of his arrest. He submits that he should be dealt with in the way that Horne was. Horne was dealt with on an earlier occasion by a different judge to the judge who sentenced these appellants. That judge accepted Horne's basis of plea after a Newton hearing, possibly with a degree of reluctance. We have been told that the judge had reservations about Horne's position but decided that he would give him the benefit of the doubt. To that extent Horne has possibly been lucky in the sentence he received. The judge appears to have been prepared to regard Horne as someone who was a victim of circumstances to some extent.
- Wilkinson was clearly not an organiser or a manager, but he was prepared to give important help to McNally in keeping a large quantity of drugs away from the police. We also note the telephone traffic after Horne's arrest preceding Beck's recovery of drugs from Horne's car. Notwithstanding that feature of the case, we feel that the judge did not give sufficient weight to Wilkinson's previous good character and to his personal mitigation. Looking at the matter in the round, we feel that a sentence of 2 years' imprisonment, after a plea, was excessive in his case and that the appropriate sentence should have been one of 16 months' imprisonment. We allow the appeal in his case by substituting that term for the 2 years imposed.
- We then turn to Carroll. He transported significant amounts of drugs on a single day for Nuttall. His reward was to be some £500. It is accepted that he is not an organiser. Mr Carroll has an appreciable criminal record but only one conviction for possession of drugs. His record is significantly worse than Hutchinson's and Wilkinson had no convictions. Both of those individuals were involved as transporters of drugs but we are wholly unpersuaded any disparity argument arises in relation to their cases, and indeed counsel representing Carroll has not sought orally to advance that aspect of his grounds before us this afternoon.
- However, Carroll also complains with regard to the sentence imposed on Nuttall. It was Nuttall who recruited Carroll and who received 4 years' imprisonment for his involvement in the matter. Nuttall had sourced the drugs in Liverpool. Nuttall had provided a basis of plea, which was that his sourcing of the drugs in Liverpool was in response to a one-off request from McNally and he asserted that his payment for helping in that way was to be £700.
- Objectively viewed the sentence on Carroll was by no means excessive for what he had been involved in, even allowing for his subordinate role. In this context we note that the guilty plea was relatively late and that the drugs involved were worth about £80,000.
- After careful reflection it seems to us that whilst Nuttall may have been fortunate to some extent, what we have to consider is whether the difference between his sentence and that of Carroll was such as to come within the test of disparity as enunciated in Fawcett. After reflecting upon that, we do not consider that the necessary test of disparity is satisfied.
- Accordingly, this appeal must be dismissed.