T, R. v

A Crown Court may postpone or extend confiscation proceedings under Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, section 14 on its own motion. A requirement that an application to extend be made before the permitted period expires does not remove jurisdiction where the court itself has made the relevant postponement or extension.

Exceptional circumstances are required for a postponement extending beyond the permitted period. Judges should address them expressly. However, an omission to make an express finding does not invalidate the proceedings where exceptional circumstances plainly existed and Parliament did not intend total invalidity.

The Crown applied for leave to appeal against HHJ Ambrose’s ruling at Swindon Crown Court on 5 March 2010 that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain confiscation proceedings against T.

T had been convicted in his absence of money laundering on 19 December 2007. The Crown gave notice that day that it intended to seek confiscation. The proceedings were delayed after T absconded, was extradited, and failed to attend a listed confiscation hearing. A later hearing was adjourned beyond the two-year permitted period in section 14 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

The judge treated the observation in R v Iqbal [2010] EWCA Crim 376 as requiring a Crown application for an extension before expiry. The central issue was whether the Crown Court nevertheless retained jurisdiction where the court had itself postponed the proceedings and exceptional circumstances existed.

1. The Crown’s appeal was allowed. HHJ Ambrose had been wrong to conclude that the Crown Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the confiscation proceedings.

2. Section 14 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 permits a court to postpone confiscation proceedings and to extend a postponement on its own motion. The court’s adjournment of the hearing to 21 December 2009 was capable of being a postponement. Its later adjournment for lack of time extended that postponement. Section 14(8), which permits a late grant where an application to extend was made in time, concerned an application; it did not govern an extension made by the court itself.

3. The observation in R v Iqbal [2010] EWCA Crim 376 that an application to extend had to be made before the permitted period expired did not require the contrary result. The lower judge should not have treated it as removing jurisdiction.

4. A postponement beyond the two-year permitted period required exceptional circumstances under section 14(3) and (4). The Crown Court should have considered that question expressly. On the facts, however, exceptional circumstances plainly existed because T had absconded and subsequently obstructed progress in the proceedings. Following R v Soneji [2006] 1 AC 340, the absence of an express finding did not entail total invalidity where that consequence was not Parliament’s intended purpose.

5. Under section 32(2)(b), the court directed the Crown Court to proceed afresh under section 6.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — allowed the Crown’s appeal and directed the Crown Court to proceed afresh under section 6: [2010] EWCA Crim 2703.
• Swindon Crown Court — HHJ Ambrose ruled on 5 March 2010 that the court had no jurisdiction to entertain the Crown’s confiscation application. That ruling was reversed.