Jersey Unreported Judgments

Superior Number Sentencing - social security.

[2014]JRC142A

Royal Court

(Samedi)

14 July 2014

The Attorney General

-v-

Richard Albert Cocks

Sentencing by the Superior Number of the Royal Court, after conviction at Assize trial on 17^th April, 2014 on charges of:

Age:  65.

Plea: Not guilty.

Details of Offence:

Between January 2008 and December 2012, the defendant received Income Support Payments and Special Payments totalling £51,601.94 from the Department of Social Security.  During that period, he held between £1.2 and 1.5 million pounds in bank accounts and investment bonds.  On various occasions he stated, in his written applications and review forms, that he was without bank accounts or assets.  He pled not guilty and was convicted after trial.  The defendant represented himself with the assistance of a court appointed Amicus.  He was resistant to engagement with the pre-trial process.  A not guilty plea to Count 1 was accepted at the opening of the trial.  A direction to accept a not guilty plea to Count 13 was given following a half time submission by the court appointed Amicus.  Pre-sentencing reports identified a lack of remorse and sense of entitlement. 

Details of Mitigation:

None.

Previous Convictions:

None relevant.

Conclusions:

Starting point 7 years' imprisonment.

Total: 4 years' imprisonment.

Compensation Order sought in the sum of £51,601.94 in favour of the Health and Social Security Department or 12 months' imprisonment in default.

Costs order sought by the Crown under Article 2 of the Costs in Criminal Cases (Jersey) Law 1961 to cover prosecution costs.

Sentence and Observations of Court:

Conclusions granted.

R. C. P. Pedley, Esq., Crown Advocate.

Advocate J. W. R. Bell for the Defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE DEPUTY BAILIFF:

1.        You were indicted with fourteen offences under the Income Support (Jersey) Law 2007.  The Prosecution accepted your not guilty plea to Count 1 and I accepted the submissions of your amicus at trial in relation to Count 13 so you are left to be sentenced for the twelve offences of which you were convicted.  You formerly worked as a taxi driver but you have not worked since 2007; we have noted from your counsel that you worked between 2006 and 2007 as a coach driver.  You have lived in States accommodation at all relevant times until you were remanded in custody in May this year.  You received income support payments from the Social Security Department between January 2008 and December 2012.  That law came into force in January 2008.  You filled in an application form in September 2007 for rent rebate, rent abatement and income support because you had previously been receiving rent abatement and welfare from the Parish under the previous system.  On your application form you had declared that you had no income save for your benefits, no bank accounts, no calculable assets; the form included a declaration of truth and you undertook to provide notification of any change in circumstances.  You were also receiving long-term incapacity allowance as a result of a quadruple by-pass in 2007 but the incapacity allowance is not means tested.  At the time you filled in the form to say you had no capital assets and no bank accounts, you had £1.2 million in bank accounts with National Westminister Bank and Santander and a number of income bonds.  The benefits were sent to the Parish of St Clement and paid to you in cash.  You were given a warning in the summer of 2008 of your obligation to inform the Social Security Department of any change in circumstances; you were sent a review form in July 2012 to confirm your financial position and you maintained that you had no income, no bank accounts and no capital assets.  In the intervening time you had also made some applications for special payments, those are discretionary payments, for one-off expenses incurred by those on low incomes.  They require separate declarations and you had to fill in separate forms to make those applications.  In each of those you said you had no assets; in four of them you said that you tried to get a loan to cover expenses and in one you said you tried to get a loan from a friend but you could not, you had no savings. 

2.        This was deeply dishonest conduct.  You were stealing from the public, the sum in excess of some £51,000 over a 4-5 year period; it was a knowing and deliberate fraud of which you have been convicted by this Court.  The Court at the time of trial was satisfied that you had lied when you were interviewed and that you had lied on the application forms for income support and special payments.  It is clear that you are, and you were, sufficiently familiar with banking practices, that you could move money into and out of bank accounts and you could invest them and it is clear from the psychological report that you know and knew the difference between right and wrong.  The Court has noted with sadness the comments which appear in the question and answer interview with the Department in which you say "I come from a humble background and I suppose I turned into a bit of a miser as well", you walk most places you have not had many cars, you have not had a holiday and you say your life "has been a disaster, end of story and there is no future."  Well the Court notes that with sadness but in the sentence that I am going to come to in just a moment we would like to say that actually there is always hope for the future and it is a question for you to take advantage of the facilities, the opportunities, that will be given to you in the custodial sentence that we are going to impose which will enable you to look forward to a positive future when you are released from prison in due course. 

3.        The States have passed this legislation which provides for a maximum sentence of 7 years' imprisonment and in your case you have no previous convictions and that clearly stands very much to your credit when we have that maximum sentence in mind as we have to consider it when we look at the facts of this particular case.  On the other hand the offending took place over a prolonged period and the untruthful representations to the Department were repeated on a number of occasions as well.  We have had regard to everything that your counsel has said and he has said everything that could possibly be said on your behalf and we have looked at the social enquiry report again and at the psychological report, as I have said, with some sadness because it does reflect that you have not addressed your mind perhaps to the priorities of living which you might have done and you can, I hope, reflect on that when you serve the custodial sentence. 

4.        We think the right sentence is that which has been moved for by the Crown and you are sentenced to 4 years' imprisonment to run concurrently on each of the counts of which you have been convicted. 

5.        We are also going to make a Compensation Order in favour of the Department for the sum of £51,601.94 and if that sum is not paid within the next 2 months there will be a default prison sentence of 12 months. 

6.        We would like to say this and we hope that this will assist because we note from the social enquiry report that you have indicated your willingness to repay the money although that was not quite so apparent in the submissions made by Advocate Bell towards us.  The monies which are held currently at HSBC include a sum of money which clearly does represent the proceeds of crime i.e. £51,601.94 because we are making the Compensation Order for the return of those monies to the person entitled to them i.e. the Minister for Social Security.  Therefore there should be no difficulty in the bank returning that sum of money in accordance with the orders we are now making for payment of compensation because the victim is being reimbursed and we would expect that if you write a letter to the bank giving them that instruction there will be no delay in the payment being made, and it should be made as quickly as possible.  If, despite what I have said there is any difficulty in payment, there is liberty to apply.  That means that you can come back to court and ask for more time or explain a change of circumstances and Advocate Bell, I would expect you to go through that with your client after the hearing to make sure he understands clearly what the position is. 

7.        I now come to the question of costs.  Now Mr Cocks you may remember that in some of the directions hearings before trial, I warned you that the approach you were taking to the criminal proceedings was going to lead to an adverse costs order because you were not engaging with the process at all and, indeed, it was noteworthy to me that when there came a point when you realised that there might be a costs implication you did change your approach and you decided that you would engage, at least to some degree, in the process.  I regret to say that that came too late.  The Crown are entitled to ask for an order for payment of costs and in my view, because this is an exercise of my discretion, it is entirely appropriate that you do pay the costs of the Prosecution because you should have entered a guilty plea, your guilt being absolutely apparent right from the outset.  In those circumstances, and in particular, having regard to your lack of cooperation in the course of the interlocutory hearings, I am going to make an order that you pay the costs of the Prosecution on an indemnity basis as taxed by the Greffier. 

8.        The Crown also asked for an order for payment of Advocate Harrison's costs.  Advocate Harrison was the amicus and he was extremely useful to you because he succeeded in your being discharged from two counts on the Indictment and he also assisted you in the course of the trial.  However, I am persuaded by Advocate Bell that because you did not ask for the amicus to represent you or to assist the Court, it is not an expense which you should pay for and in those circumstances without deciding whether the Court has jurisdiction to make such an order under the Costs in Criminal Cases (Jersey) Law 1961 I am not going to exercise a discretion to require you to pay the costs of the amicus which will be paid for out of public funds. 

Authorities

Income Support (Jersey) Law 2007.

AG v McLoughlan [2012] JRC 179.

AG v Turner [2012] JRC 147.

AG v Duchesne [2012] JRC 063.

AG v Couillard [2011] JRC 179A.

Criminal Justice (Compensation Orders)(Jersey) Law 1994.

Costs in Criminal Cases (Jersey) Law 1961.