Clark & Anor v R

On a submission of no case to answer, a count may be left to the jury where the evidence is capable of supporting a properly directed jury’s inference of guilt. A conspirator need not know every detail or the precise means by which the agreed deception will be carried out. It is enough that the person knowingly joins a common criminal purpose.

Circumstantial evidence, including unexplained financial arrangements, may permit an inference of knowing participation even though an individual document bearing the defendant’s purported signature is forged. Inconsistent verdicts warrant intervention only where they are logically inconsistent; differing conspiracies, participants and evidence may rationally produce acquittal on one count and conviction on another.

The appellants, husband and wife, were convicted at the Crown Court at Southwark of two conspiracies to defraud mortgage lenders and of attempting to convert criminal property. Their sentences of 12 months’ imprisonment were suspended.

The prosecution alleged fraudulent mortgage transactions involving the sale of Canister Hall and the purchase of Mitchell Hall. Julie Clark maintained that she had been deceived by Warren Mitchell and had not knowingly participated. The appellants challenged the judge’s refusal of Julie Clark’s half-time submission of no case to answer on the conspiracy counts. Stephen Clark also alleged that his convictions were inconsistent with his acquittal on a different conspiracy count.

The central issue was whether the prosecution evidence was capable of supporting convictions for knowing participation in the alleged conspiracies.

1. The appeals were dismissed. The judge correctly left counts 14 and 15 to the jury. There was evidence from which a reasonable jury, properly directed, could infer that Julie Clark knowingly participated in both conspiracies.

2. On count 14, the unexplained allowance on the sale, the circular funding involving Danny Downs, the repayment from the solicitors’ client account, and the later payment of £110,000 into Julie Clark’s personal account were capable of supporting that inference. The forged authority for the repayment was potentially exculpatory, but it did not admit of only that interpretation. The jury could decide whether she was an innocent person deceived by Mitchell or knew and participated in the fraud.

3. The conspiracy was not confined to a particular mechanism of deception. Applying R v Griffiths [1966] 1 QB 589, a person need not know every detail of the scheme. It was sufficient that there was a common criminal purpose to deceive the lender. Julie Clark therefore did not need to know that the purported purchaser in count 14 was bogus, provided she knowingly joined the fraudulent purpose.

4. On count 15, the false mortgage information, the unexplained allowance and payments, and the surrounding transactions were likewise capable of supporting a finding that Julie Clark knowingly joined the scheme. Count 15 did not necessarily depend on count 14, although the existence of a case on count 14 also supported leaving count 15 to the jury.

5. Since the conspiracy convictions were safe, the count 16 conviction was also safe. Stephen Clark’s inconsistent-verdict argument failed because the acquitted count involved a different conspiracy, parties and evidence; the verdicts were not logically inconsistent.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): By [2012] EWCA Crim 1220, dismissed both appeals against conviction and upheld the convictions.
• Crown Court at Southwark: Before HH Judge Goymer, convicted both appellants of two counts of conspiracy to defraud and one count of attempting to convert criminal property.