Randhawa & Anor, R. v

In fixing the period of a criminal disqualification from company management, the court must ensure that the order reflects the gravity of the offending. It may also take account of an offender’s subsequent acceptance of responsibility and present attitude to compliance.

Where existing disqualification undertakings remain in force, a further disqualification for serious breaches should extend beyond them. The appropriate extension and total period remain matters of sentencing judgment in the circumstances of each offender.

The appellants, a married couple, were convicted at Worcester Crown Court of being concerned in the promotion, formation or management of companies while undischarged bankrupts, and of contravening director-disqualification orders. They had given ten-year disqualification undertakings in 2003 and were later alleged to have managed two companies.

They made late applications for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence. The applications concerning conviction were abandoned after counsel accepted that the undertakings remained valid until set aside and that the appellants were guilty of all counts. The Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal against sentence, limited to the twelve-year periods of disqualification imposed on each appellant.

1. The appeals against sentence were allowed to a limited extent. The court reduced Charnjit Singh Randhawa’s disqualification from twelve to ten years, and Jusvir Kaur Randhawa’s from twelve to eight years.

2. The sentencing judge had been entitled, on the information then available, to regard the appellants as presenting a real danger to the public. He was also entitled to take account of their failure to accept responsibility and of the conduct of the defence before trial.

3. A disqualification for these serious breaches of company law had to reflect the gravity of the criminality. It would have been wrong to impose a period which did not extend beyond the appellants’ existing disqualification undertakings.

4. However, the Court of Appeal gave weight to the appellants’ eventual acceptance of their position, their abandonment of the conviction applications, and the way in which they then presented their case. Those matters justified limited reductions without criticism of the sentencing judge’s original decisions.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2008] EWCA Crim 2599, the court granted leave to appeal against sentence. The conviction applications had been abandoned. It allowed the sentence appeals to the limited extent of reducing the periods of disqualification.
• Crown Court at Worcester: On 26 January 2007, the appellants were convicted. On 23 April 2007, Charnjit Singh Randhawa received fifteen months’ imprisonment and Jusvir Kaur Randhawa received nine months’ imprisonment suspended for two years; each was disqualified from acting as a company director for twelve years.