Pierens, R (on the application of) v Customs & Excise

When deciding whether to extend a custody time limit, the court may assess the entire period of the proceedings and the causes of delay. It is not confined to the immediate event that made the extension necessary. Defence-generated delay may constitute good and sufficient cause, even where part of the later delay resulted from court administration. The statutory conditions remain separate: there must be good and sufficient cause, and the prosecution must have acted with all due expedition. Judicial review is limited. The reviewing court asks whether relevant matters were considered, irrelevant matters were relied upon, or the decision was irrational. It does not substitute its own view merely because it might have reached a different conclusion.

The claimant sought judicial review of HHJ Matheson's decision on 13 June 2003 to extend his custody time limit to 25 August 2003. He was charged with fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on importing cocaine, contrary to the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979.

The extension was challenged principally because the Crown Court office had delayed transmitting a draft Belgian letter of request to the Home Office. The claimant accepted that the prosecution had acted with all due expedition. The central issue was whether the judge was entitled to consider the whole history of the proceedings when deciding whether there was good and sufficient cause under section 22(3) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985.

1. The claim was dismissed. HHJ Matheson's decision was not liable to be quashed.
2. Section 22(3) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 imposes two separate conditions: good and sufficient cause for extending the custody time limit, and prosecution conduct with all due expedition. The second condition was conceded.
3. The judge was entitled to examine the entirety of the period from arrest to the extension application. No inflexible rule required attention to be confined to the immediate cause of the final delay. The court should be slow to prescribe general rules of relevance, although consideration of the whole period will often be appropriate.
4. The principal delays arose from defence applications for foreign evidence and requests to remove the case from the warned list. The five-week administrative delay in transmitting the Belgian request was relatively small in the context of the whole period. The judge was entitled to consider both that default and the broader causes of delay.
5. The decision was one of judicial review. The court was not required to decide whether it would have made the same decision. The relevant questions were whether the judge considered matters which should have been considered, ignored relevant matters, relied on irrelevant matters, or reached an irrational conclusion. Those errors were not established.
6. The judge was also entitled to decide the application without deferring it pending further enquiries to the Home Office or Belgian authorities. The material before him did not justify a finding of fault in that respect.

The judgment concerned judicial review in the High Court of HHJ Matheson's Crown Court decision dated 13 June 2003. The extension of the custody time limit was upheld and the decision was not quashed.