Bell, R v

A consecutive sentence for money laundering may properly be imposed alongside sentences for drug production and supply where the laundering has a separate gravamen and adds to the offender’s overall criminality. The fact that sentences for commercial drug offending already reflect its profitability and require deterrence does not prevent a further consecutive sentence for distinct laundering conduct.

The assessment is fact-specific. Deliberately using relatives and associates to conceal, hold or enjoy criminal proceeds may justify treating the laundering as additional criminality rather than as a duplicate of the drug offending.

The appellant pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Worcester to conspiracies to produce cannabis, supply cannabis and possess criminal property. The offences involved a substantial cannabis-growing operation and the use of criminal proceeds to fund an extravagant lifestyle and conceal the appellant’s connection with property and vehicles.

He received concurrent sentences for the drug conspiracies and a consecutive 30-month sentence for conspiracy to possess criminal property, producing a total of seven years’ imprisonment. He appealed against sentence with leave of the single judge. The central issue was whether the consecutive sentence for the criminal-property conspiracy impermissibly duplicated punishment for the profits and deterrent features of the drug conspiracies.

1. Appeal dismissed. The consecutive 30-month sentence for conspiracy to possess criminal property was neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive. The original sentence was to stand.

2. The court accepted that sentences for large-scale commercial cannabis production and supply properly reflect the profits available to organisers and the need for deterrence. It considered the sentencing guidance in R v Xiong Xu [2008] 2 Cr.App.R(S) 50. That did not, however, make a separate money-laundering sentence duplicative in every case.

3. Whether sentences should be concurrent or consecutive depends on the facts and on whether the laundering charge adds distinct criminality to the underlying drug offending. A laundering charge may add nothing in some cases. Here it did: the appellant had cynically involved close family members and others in arrangements designed to distance him from assets and to enable the enjoyment of drug proceeds.

4. Those arrangements constituted an additional and properly punishable feature of the offending. They entitled the sentencing judge to impose a consecutive sentence despite the concurrent treatment of the production and supply conspiracies, which arose from the same facts.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The appellant’s sentence appeal, brought with leave of the single judge, was dismissed. The seven-year total sentence remained in force.
• Crown Court at Worcester: On 18 January 2008, following guilty pleas, the appellant received four and a half years’ imprisonment for conspiracy to produce cannabis, three years concurrently for conspiracy to supply cannabis, and 30 months consecutively for conspiracy to possess criminal property.