Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office (RCPO) v Iqbal

Under section 14 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, the ordinary two-year period for postponed confiscation proceedings is mandatory. Exceptional circumstances may permit a postponement ordered within that period to end later. An extension may also be granted after the period ends, but only if the application to extend was made before expiry.

Where no effective postponement order or timely application to extend exists before the permitted period ends, the court has no jurisdiction to continue with the confiscation application. Section 14(11), which concerns quashing an order already made, does not directly resolve that position.

The respondent pleaded guilty on 10 January 2006 to conspiracy to supply. The Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office asked the Crown Court to make a confiscation order under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

The respondent's confiscation hearing was postponed so that it could be heard by the trial judge, but no subsequent postponement order was made and no application to extend the period was made before 9 January 2008, two years after conviction. In 2009, HHJ Scott at Bradford Crown Court held that the court had no jurisdiction to entertain the application and, if he were wrong, that there were no exceptional circumstances.

The prosecution appealed. The central issue was whether exceptional circumstances could permit a confiscation application to be entertained after expiry despite the absence of a timely order or application to extend.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Crown Court had no jurisdiction to entertain the confiscation application after the permitted period had expired.

2. Section 14(3) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 provides in mandatory terms that a postponement period must not end after the permitted period. Under section 14(5), that period was two years from conviction and expired on 9 January 2008.

3. Section 14(4) permits a court, where exceptional circumstances exist, to order during the two-year period that the postponed hearing take place after that period. Section 14(8) provides the only further route relevant here: an application to extend an existing postponement, made before the permitted period ends, may be granted after it has ended. It does not permit a new application for an extension at any time after expiry.

4. The proposed permissive reading of section 14(3) could not be accepted. It would deprive section 14(8) of its limiting effect and would require “must” to bear inconsistent meanings within section 14.

5. Soneji and another [2005] UKHL 49; [2006] 1 AC 340 did not justify a different construction. The wording of section 14, particularly subsections (3) and (8), showed that Parliament intended a longer period than under the earlier legislation but required a timely application to extend it.

6. Section 14(11) could not directly assist because no confiscation order had been made. The court did not decide its meaning where an order has been made, nor how the prosecution might have rectified the position before expiry.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2010] EWCA Crim 376, dismissed the prosecution's appeal and upheld the ruling that the Crown Court lacked jurisdiction.

• Bradford Crown Court: HHJ Scott held that the court had no jurisdiction to entertain the confiscation application and further held that, if jurisdiction existed, exceptional circumstances were absent.