Chaudhery, R. v

In an appeal against sentence for cheating the public revenue, the scale of the unrecoverable loss to the Revenue may carry decisive weight. A substantial sentence may remain proper despite a guilty plea and personal mitigation where the offender played a significant role in a large-scale VAT fraud. Credit for mitigation must be sufficient, but it need not reduce the sentence where the overall seriousness of the offending justifies it.

The appellant pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Croydon to cheating the public revenue contrary to common law. He was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for his part in a missing-trader intra-community VAT fraud, and was disqualified under the Company Directors Disqualification Act for seven years.

His company incurred VAT liabilities of £37.9 million during a few weeks of trading. The wider fraud caused defaulted VAT liabilities of £149 million. The appellant appealed against sentence, contending that the sentencing judge had failed to give adequate weight to mitigation.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Court held that the seven-year sentence was not excessive.

2. The Court considered the loss to the Revenue to be huge and irrecoverable. Those features were materially more serious than in some of the other cases referred to during the appeal.

3. The appellant’s guilty plea and all matters advanced in mitigation had been taken into account. The Court held that sufficient credit had been given for them.

4. Indeed, notwithstanding the plea and mitigation, the seriousness of the offending could have justified a sentence in double figures. There was therefore no basis to interfere with the sentence imposed.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): dismissed the appellant’s appeal against his seven-year sentence.
• Crown Court at Croydon: following a guilty plea to cheating the public revenue contrary to common law, imposed seven years’ imprisonment and a seven-year disqualification under the Company Directors Disqualification Act.