Prince, R v

A long-delayed application for leave to appeal requires an adequate, evidenced explanation for the delay. In confiscation proceedings, a sentencing judge's express adjournment of the remaining aspect of the case may demonstrate compliance with the requirement to address confiscation before sentencing or otherwise dealing with the offender.

Procedural requirements governing confiscation should be construed to preserve Parliament's confiscation scheme where the offender suffers no significant prejudice or injustice from a bona fide procedural error. The public interest against permitting a convicted offender to escape confiscation may outweigh treating such an error as causing total invalidity.

The applicant was convicted at Inner London Crown Court of possessing cannabis with intent to supply. He received a community punishment order on 11 April 2003. A confiscation order of £70,847.93, with 18 months' imprisonment in default, was later made on 18 July 2003.

More than four years later, he renewed an application for an extension of time and for leave to appeal against both the conviction and the confiscation order. The single judge had refused the original application on paper. The challenge to the confiscation order alleged non-compliance with sections 2(2) and 2(4) of the Drug Trafficking Act 1994.

1. The court refused the renewed applications for an extension of time and for leave to appeal against conviction and confiscation. The application was more than four years late. The asserted ill health was unsupported by medical evidence, and no adequate explanation for the delay had been given.

2. There was no merit in the proposed challenge to the conviction. The summing-up did not render the conviction unsafe. In a short case, the judge was not required to advance every possible argument, and had properly left questions of fact to the jury.

3. The confiscation challenge also lacked merit. The sentencing judge had stated that another aspect of the matter was adjourned. The only sensible inference was that confiscation proceedings had been adjourned. That showed compliance with sections 2(2) and 2(4) of the Drug Trafficking Act 1994.

4. In any event, the reasoning in R v Soneji and Bullen [2006] 1 Cr App R(S) 79 supplied an independent answer. Procedural restrictions should not be treated as mandatorily invalidating a confiscation order where the offender suffers no significant prejudice or injustice and the error was bona fide. The public interest in effective confiscation outweighed total invalidity on the facts.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): renewed applications for an extension of time and for leave to appeal against conviction and confiscation were refused in [2008] EWCA Crim 1592.

• Inner London Crown Court: the applicant was convicted on 18 March 2003, sentenced on 11 April 2003, and made subject to a confiscation order on 18 July 2003.