England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London, WC2A 2LL Date; Friday, 18 August 2017

1. MR JUSTICE HOLROYDE: On 20th May 2016 in the Crown Court at Wolverhampton, this applicant was convicted of five offences of fraud and one offence of possessing an identity document with improper intention. He was sentenced to a total of 4 years' imprisonment.
2. The facts of the case are well summarised in the document prepared by the Criminal Appeals Office and we need not repeat them. It suffices to say that the learned Recorder, who had heard all the evidence at trial summarised the offending in this way:

"Whilst nobody is suggesting that you lived the high life, the fact remains that, over a period of about seven years, you led a double life existing, when it suited you, under two different identities. This double life enabled you to deceive the authorities into parting in excess of £146,000, and at a time when your were earning money as a taxi driver, employment you gained by deceiving the city council."

3. At the conclusion of the trial and the sentencing procedure the applicant was advised by his legal representatives that he had no arguable grounds of appeal. He ignored that advice and indeed made a number of unjustified complaints about his lawyers. He applied for leave to appeal against both conviction and sentence. He also applied for an extension of time. All his applications were refused by the single judge.
4. No further step has been taken in relation to the convictions but the applicant renews to the Full Court his application for an extension of time in which to apply for leave to appeal against sentence.
5. The grounds of appeal which the applicant has put forward can be summarised as follows. He contends that his sentence was "very harsh" and manifestly excessive. He was of previous good character and he complains that he and his family had been forced to live in poor housing and had been in receipt of State benefits which were inadequate for their needs.
6. Those grounds of appeal are, in our judgment, wholly without merit. Although the applicant had no previous convictions he had been committing serious fraud over a period of several years. His complaint that the State benefits were inadequate cannot assist him. As to the complaint that the sentence was very harsh, we do not think we can do better than quote from the reasons given by the learned single judge when refusing leave on the papers:

"The offences you committed were well planned, sophisticated and carried out over a lengthy period. They involved the production of false documents and dishonestly obtained for you a large amount of money. Your offending fell within Category 2A of the Sentencing Guidelines on fraud which, based on a figure of £300,000, gives a starting point for sentence of 5 years and a sentencing range of 3-6 years.

You did not have the benefit that a guilty plea would have attracted and, therefore, your sentence comes well within the acceptable range of sentences for this type of offending and is not manifestly excessive."

7. There is accordingly no ground on which it is even arguable that the prison sentences can be challenged.
8. However, an alert lawyer in the Criminal Appeal Office has identified a technical error in the sentencing. A victim surcharge order in the sum of £120 was wrongly made. Having regard to the dates when the offending was committed, no such order should have been made.
9. It is therefore necessary to correct that error so as to quash that unlawful order. We accordingly grant the necessary extension of time, we grant leave to appeal and we allow the appeal only to the very limited extent that we quash the victim surcharge order. We reiterate that the appeal succeeds only to the extent of correcting that technical error. The prison sentences remain as before.

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