Fawcett, R v

The abuse-of-process jurisdiction protects defendants from unfairness and oppression, rather than providing an automatic remedy for every prosecutorial error. A defendant should not be convicted or punished both for handling stolen property and for the burglary from which it was derived. However, where an erroneous earlier handling conviction can properly be removed, proceeding on the burglary charges does not expose the defendant to double punishment or oppressive repeated process.

The Crown Court has an inherent or implied jurisdiction to vacate a guilty plea in an appropriate case. That power is not confined to an application by the defendant, and may be exercised to prevent an unjust duplication of convictions.

The appellant pleaded guilty at Hull Crown Court to handling stolen property, fraud and theft on one indictment. The handling counts concerned property taken in two burglaries. By that hearing, he had also been charged with the burglaries, following DNA evidence connecting him with one of the burgled houses, but the prosecutor was unaware of those charges.

When the burglary indictment later came before the Crown Court, the appellant sought a stay for abuse of process. The Recorder refused the application and he pleaded guilty to the burglaries. He appealed against those convictions, contending that the prosecution subjected him to criminal process twice on substantially the same facts.

1. Appeal dismissed. The court rejected the contention that the burglary prosecution was an abuse of process. The prosecution of the handling indictment had proceeded because of an error, but allowing the appeal would elevate technicality over justice.
2. The appellant could not properly remain convicted, still less be punished, for both handling the stolen property and the burglaries. That did not require an acquittal on the burglary counts. The proper course was to vacate the earlier handling pleas and sentence him for the burglaries.
3. The central purpose of the abuse jurisdiction is to protect an accused person from unfairness and oppression. Once the handling pleas were vacated, the appellant faced no real risk of being proceeded against twice for the same offending. The mistake at the earlier hearing therefore did not make the later burglary convictions abusive.
4. The court rejected the assertion that it lacked power to vacate the handling pleas without an application from the appellant. R v Drew [1985] 1 WLR 914 showed that vacation of a guilty plea on a defendant’s application was established and commonplace. The court’s inherent or implied common-law power to regulate its own procedure, considered with R v Munro [1997] Cr App R 183, was sufficiently broad to permit vacation in these circumstances.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)—in [2013] EWCA Crim 1399, dismissed the appeal against the burglary convictions.
• Hull Crown Court—on 27 September 2012, the Recorder dismissed the appellant’s application to stay the burglary charges as an abuse of process; the appellant then pleaded guilty to them. On 6 June 2012, he had pleaded guilty on a separate indictment, including to handling stolen property connected with the burglaries.