Dawson v R

A prosecution is not rendered abusive merely because it follows an earlier guilty plea based on a limited account of the offender’s conduct. The court must identify what the prosecution actually accepted. Non-contestation of a basis of plea does not amount to a representation that the offender’s involvement was confined to one delivery, where neither the basis nor the prosecution’s statement made that assertion.

On sentence, a consecutive term for a later conspiracy conviction was proper where the overall sentence reflected the offender’s wider courier role and the sentence that would properly have been imposed had all offending been sentenced together.

The appellant pleaded guilty at Preston Crown Court to conspiracy to supply amphetamine. He received 18 months’ imprisonment, consecutive to the six-year sentence he was already serving for possession of amphetamine with intent to supply on 6 April 2009.

He had pleaded guilty to the earlier substantive offence after advancing a basis of plea which substantially understated his involvement. The prosecution accepted the pleas and offered no evidence on a separate cannabis count. Following a later investigation, he was charged with a conspiracy involving earlier deliveries and the 6 April delivery.

He appealed after the trial judge rejected his application to stay the later prosecution as an abuse of process. He also renewed his application for leave to appeal the consecutive sentence. The central issue was whether the prosecution had previously accepted that the 6 April delivery was his only delivery.

1. The appeal was dismissed and renewed leave to appeal sentence was refused. The court held that the premise of the abuse argument was not established. The prosecution had not represented on 31 July 2009 that the appellant had made only one delivery.
2. The earlier basis of plea did not clearly assert that the appellant accepted only a single delivery. Although he may have hoped to be sentenced on that false basis, the prosecution’s decision not to contest the basis did not communicate that his involvement was limited to one occasion.
3. The prosecution did not tell the sentencing judge that the appellant should be sentenced on the footing that his sole involvement with drugs was the delivery on 6 April 2009. It was therefore unnecessary to determine what the prosecution knew at the earlier sentencing hearing, or whether an ongoing investigation’s need to avoid premature disclosure could have been relevant.
4. On sentence, the Crown Court had proceeded on the basis that the appellant had acted as a courier in four further deliveries as well as the 6 April delivery. The Court of Appeal agreed that, if all of the conspiracy offending had been sentenced in July 2009, a sentence of seven and a half years’ imprisonment would have been proper. The consecutive 18-month term was accordingly not open to challenge.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The court rejected the abuse-of-process challenge and refused renewed leave to appeal the consecutive sentence: [2012] EWCA Crim 1476.
• Crown Court at Preston: HHJ Newell rejected the application to stay the conspiracy prosecution. The appellant then pleaded guilty and received 18 months’ imprisonment, consecutive to his existing sentence.
• Earlier sentencing: The appellant was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for possession of amphetamine with intent to supply, later reduced to six years on appeal.