Amir & Anor, R v

Deliberate, organised sporting corruption by professional players is serious criminal conduct. Internal disciplinary sanctions, including a ban that ends or seriously damages a sporting career, may be relevant mitigation. They do not remove the need for a criminal sentence that marks the betrayal of the team, the sport and its public.

In assessing sentence, the court may distinguish between an organiser who abuses a position of authority and a younger, impressionable participant. Youth and influence may reduce culpability, but do not extinguish it where the participant understood the corrupt arrangement, performed it deliberately and accepted payment. Immediate custody may therefore be necessary.

Mohammad Amir and Salman Butt appealed against sentences imposed at the Crown Court at Southwark by Cooke J following their involvement in a cricket spot-fixing conspiracy during Pakistan's 2010 tour of England.

Amir pleaded guilty to conspiracy to accept corrupt payments and conspiracy to cheat. Butt was convicted by a jury of the same offences. Butt, the team captain, received concurrent sentences of two years six months' and two years' imprisonment. Amir received concurrent six-month terms of detention in a young offender institution.

Both had also been sanctioned by the International Cricket Council, with bans preventing them from playing or coaching cricket. The appeals challenged the severity of the custodial sentences, including the weight given to those disciplinary consequences and to Amir's youth and vulnerability to Butt's influence.

1. The appeals against sentence were dismissed. The Court found no reason to interfere with Cooke J's sentencing decisions.

2. The offending was carefully prepared corruption, not a spontaneous lapse. The players agreed to bowl specified no-balls in return for money. Their conduct betrayed their team, their country, the sport and those who watched it. If players could not be trusted to perform honestly and to the best of their ability, public confidence and enjoyment of the sport would be destroyed.

3. Butt was properly treated as the most culpable player. As captain, he had a duty to resist and prevent corruption. Instead, he orchestrated it and exerted a malign influence on Amir and Asif. The judge was entitled to regard him as centrally responsible, notwithstanding the personal mitigation and the serious effect of the ICC ban on his career.

4. Amir's youth, impoverished background, inexperience and susceptibility to Butt's influence materially reduced his culpability. They did not extinguish it. He understood the risks of corruption, deliberately delivered the two no-balls required by the agreement, accepted payment and initially denied wrongdoing before the ICC. His prompt guilty plea in the criminal proceedings was properly credited.

5. The ICC sanctions were significant, particularly for Amir's promising career. Nevertheless, sporting discipline did not make criminal punishment unnecessary. A short immediate custodial sentence was necessary and appropriate to mark the seriousness of the criminal conduct.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — dismissed Amir's appeal and Butt's appeal against sentence: [2011] EWCA Crim 2914.
• Crown Court at Southwark — before Cooke J, Amir pleaded guilty on 16 September 2011 and Butt was convicted on 1 November 2011 of conspiracy to accept corrupt payments and conspiracy to cheat. On 3 November 2011, Butt received concurrent terms of two years six months' and two years' imprisonment, while Amir received concurrent six-month terms of detention in a young offender institution.