Aujla, R v

For confiscation under the amended Criminal Justice Act 1988, a defendant’s benefit is the value of property obtained through relevant criminal conduct. A money launderer who handles the whole sum obtains that sum for this purpose. Benefit is therefore not confined to net profit or reward.

The amended scheme does not preserve the former general discretion to reduce an order. The serious-risk-of-injustice safeguard concerns identifiable property or expenditure. A proportionality challenge under Article 1 did not arise where benefit had been correctly assessed.

The appellant pleaded guilty at Wolverhampton Crown Court to conspiracy to transfer or remove money suspected to represent another person’s criminal proceeds. The agreed basis of plea recorded that he had handled about £3 million as a Hawala banker and made a net profit of £30,000.

A confiscation order of £263,471.55, being the agreed available realisable assets, was made with four years’ imprisonment in default. The appellant appealed against its amount. He contended that his benefit was limited to profit, that the court retained a discretion to make that reduction, and that a larger sum was disproportionate under Article 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

1. Appeal dismissed. The appellant’s benefit was £3 million, not his £30,000 net profit. Under section 71(4) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, benefit is the value of property obtained as a result of, or in connection with, the offence. The established confiscation authorities showed that a person who receives and disposes of the whole proceeds obtains the whole sum, even where others ultimately receive part of it.

2. The court followed the reasoning in R v Patel [2000] 2 Cr App R(S) 10, R v Alagobola [2004] EWCA Crim 89, R v Sharma [2006] 2 Cr App R(S) 63, and the benefit reasoning in R v Glatt [2006] EWCA Crim 605. The punitive and deterrent purpose of confiscation would be undermined if recovery were limited to the launderer’s individual profit.

3. The broad discretion exercised under the unamended Act in R v Glatt did not apply. Amendments made by the Proceeds of Crime Act 1995 made an order mandatory once benefit was established, subject only to the limited discretion concerning assumptions about particular property or expenditure under section 72AA(5). The appellant identified no such property or expenditure. The agreed basis of plea also necessarily accepted £3 million as the statutory benefit.

4. The Article 1 submission failed. A materially similar argument had been rejected in R v Sharma [2006] 2 Cr App R(S) 63; moreover, no proportionality issue arose once benefit was correctly calculated under the statutory scheme.

5. The court added that confiscation rulings require clear reasons. A sentencing court should state whether statutory assumptions are accepted or rejected, and explain the findings and conclusions supporting the order.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — dismissed the appeal against the amount of the confiscation order.
• Wolverhampton Crown Court — following the appellant’s guilty plea, imposed a confiscation order of £263,471.55 on 19 December 2006, with four years’ imprisonment in default. The appellant had previously received a four-year sentence of imprisonment, later reduced by the Court of Appeal to three years.