Revell-Reade v The Serious Fraud Office & Anor

Applications for search and seizure warrants under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 require independent and rigorous judicial scrutiny. The applicant must provide a fair and balanced presentation, including material that may weigh against granting the warrant. The judge should give brief reasons addressing the principal issues and explaining why the warrant is justified.

A failure to give reasons does not automatically invalidate the decision. The decisive question is whether the information placed before the judge was materially defective. Where sustained, significant and unexplained failures to comply with disclosure orders support the inference that voluntary cooperation will not be forthcoming, intrusive warrants may be justified. The applicant need not provide an exhaustive account of every item of information previously disclosed if the material failures are clearly and fairly identified.

The claimant sought judicial review of three warrants granted by Judge Pitts at Southwark Crown Court on 15 May 2013 under section 352 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The warrants authorised searches of the claimant’s home, an associate’s property and a motorcar owned by the claimant’s wife.

The Serious Fraud Office sought the warrants in connection with anticipated confiscation proceedings. It relied on extensive, allegedly incomplete and contradictory disclosure concerning the claimant’s assets, bank accounts, companies, trusts and sources of income, despite earlier civil and criminal restraint orders.

The central issues were whether the procedure before Judge Pitts was legally defective because the hearing was brief, unrecorded and unsupported by reasons, and whether the information supplied to him was sufficiently fair, balanced and reliable to justify the warrants.

1. The application for judicial review was refused. The warrants were justified by the material placed before Judge Pitts.
2. Search-warrant applications are not formalities. The court must receive the material necessary for independent scrutiny, including relevant matters which may militate against granting the warrant. The judge should provide a succinct account of the principal factors considered and the reasons for the decision. This followed the guidance in R (Rawlinson and Hunter Trusteess) v CCC [2012] EWHC 2254 (Admin); [2013] 1 WLR 1634, and was consistent with Flannery and Flannery v Halifax Estate Agents Ltd [2000] 1 WLR 377.
3. Judge Pitts’ statement that he was satisfied that the statutory requirements were met was inadequate. Nevertheless, the absence of reasons did not itself vitiate the decision. The issues were sufficiently straightforward, and the material showed that the correct result was inevitable if the information was materially sound and fairly presented.
4. The brevity of the hearing and absence of a contemporaneous note were likewise not determinative. The judge was entitled to decide whether further oral assistance was needed after reading the 20-page Information. The real issue was whether that document was materially defective.
5. The claimant’s disclosure had remained obscure, contradictory, incomplete and unsupported by documents over a substantial period. The deficiencies concerned, among other matters, companies, property, bank accounts, trusts, vehicle sale proceeds and the source of funds used to maintain his lifestyle. They justified the inference that further voluntary disclosure would not be forthcoming.
6. The SFO was required to present a balanced case, but it was not required to burden the judge with an exhaustive account of all material previously supplied where the specific and serious failures relied upon were clearly explained. The unexplained passage of substantial sums through the Dietrich International Ventures Inc account was, by itself, sufficient justification for the warrants.

Not stated in the judgment.