ON APPEAL FROM HHJ S Wright
Inner London Crown Court
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
MRS JUSTICE WHIPPLE
and
HHJ DEAN QC (sitting as a Judge of the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division)
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R |
Respondent |
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- and - |
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T F |
Appellant |
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James Brown (instructed by Crown Prosecution Service) for the Respondent
Hearing date: 6th December 2018
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Crown Copyright ©
Mrs Justice Whipple :
Introduction
Facts
Appeal against conviction
"3.— Power to substitute conviction of alternative offence.
(1) This section applies on an appeal against conviction, where the appellant has been convicted of an offence to which he did not plead guilty and the jury could on the indictment have found him guilty of some other offence, and on the finding of the jury it appears to the Court of Appeal that the jury must have been satisfied of facts which proved him guilty of the other offence.
(2) The Court may, instead of allowing or dismissing the appeal, substitute for the verdict found by the jury a verdict of guilty of the other offence, and pass such sentence in substitution for the sentence passed at the trial as may be authorised by law for the other offence, not being a sentence of greater severity.
"33 In the light of the wording of the section and the authorities to which we have referred, we consider that it cannot be argued that the offence of indecent assault on a man could "ordinarily involve an allegation of" an indecent assault on a woman. On the contrary, the two offences are mutually exclusive. It is obvious that the jury must have been satisfied of facts which proved the defendant guilty of indecently assaulting his male victim, for the purposes of s.3 but this conclusion satisfies only the second limb of the test propounded by the court in Graham and not the first."
"68 This is not a case where the counts were misstated by obvious clerical slip or drafting error as occurred in cases such as R. v Stocker [2014] 1 Cr. App. R. 18 (p.247) and R. v D(A) [2016] 2 Cr App R 18 (p.241). To the contrary, this was a conscious prosecutorial decision to charge theft rather than fraud by false representation. Besides, theft and fraud are not coterminous, even though they may have dishonesty in common. A thief is not necessarily a fraudster. A fraudster is not necessarily a thief.
69 Further, whilst the facts here would (on the verdicts of the jury) have grounded convictions for fraud by false misrepresentation, one has to have regard to the actual terms of s.3 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968. The question is not just whether on the facts the jury could have convicted of some other offence. The question also is whether on the indictment (emphasis added) the jury could have so convicted. The importance of these words in the section was emphasised in Graham and D(A) (cited above). It is difficult to see how that requirement could be satisfied in the present case."
Retrial
"7.— Power to order retrial.
(1) Where the Court of Appeal allow an appeal against conviction and it appears to the Court that the interests of justice so require, they may order the appellant to be retried.
(2) A person shall not under this section be ordered to be retried for any offence other than—
(a) the offence of which he was convicted at the original trial and in respect of which his appeal is allowed as mentioned in subsection (1) above;
(b) an offence of which he could have been convicted at the original trial on an indictment for the first-mentioned offence; or
(c) an offence charged in an alternative count of the indictment in respect of which no verdict was given in consequence of his being convicted of the first-mentioned offence."
Appeal against Sentence
"I could, but for totality, have passed a sentence of 9 years in relation to counts 4 and 8. It seems to me that there are aggravating features so far as those counts are concerned. They both relate to different people, and on both occasions you ejaculated.".
i) Count 8, 8 years imprisonment, to which sentences under counts 2, 3, 13, 5, 6, and 7 will run concurrently. (These sentences were previously ordered to run concurrently with the sentence on count 9.)
ii) Count 4, 8 years imprisonment, to run consecutively;
iii) Count 14, 2 years imprisonment, to run consecutively.