Jersey Unreported Judgments

ROYAL COURT

(Samedi Division)

22 December 1999

Before: F C Hamon, Deputy Bailiff and

Jurats Quérée and Le Breton

AG

v

Robin John Le Cras

Application for admission to Bail following not guilty pleas entered before the Inferior Number on 5 November 1999 to the counts set out below, when the applicant was remanded in custody to take his trial at an Extraordinary Criminal Assize on 22 May 2000:

54 counts of fraudulent conversion (counts 1 - 54 inclusive)

35 counts of fraud (counts 55 - 91 inclusive)

Paul Mathews, Crown Advocate

Advocate C M Fogarty for the Applicant

JUDGMENT

THE DEPUTY BAILIFF: We heard the background facts to this case on 9 February when we refused bail, including the circumstances under which the applicant left the Island, and successfully disappeared before being tracked down in Southern England and brought back to Jersey.

What has now changed is that Miss Fogarty, who has only held the papers for some four days, may have discovered that Market Travel is in fact responsible for some £9,000 of the indicted sum of £38,000. That would, if Miss Fogarty is right, reduce the charges to £29,000 and her investigations are continuing.

It is of concern to this Court that the applicant has spent nine months in custody to date, with a trial set as far ahead as May 2000. However, the delays are explicable if not excusable. He was remanded to the Royal Court on 29 September and indicted on 5 November.

Miss Fogarty suggested that the grant of bail might be limited to the end of the first week in February, when she will naturally have more detailed evidence available. At the moment - notwithstanding the limited time she has been able to spend on the case - she has speculative evidence only. The details of the applicant’s leaving the Island on 19 November, his lies to his wife and to the police after his arrest, the seriousness of the offences, and his previous record leaves us in no doubt - even if one took £9,000 out of the indictment - that the application must be refused. However, we would not discourage Miss Fogarty from a further application when she has better evidential matters to put before us, because one of the grounds for granting bail must be the length of sentence that could follow if the prosecution were to succeed, and of course another ground for bail is the likelihood of the success of that prosecution in any event. At present, however, bail is refused.

No Authorities