Bangar, R. v

The Court of Appeal’s criminal jurisdiction is statutory and, under section 1 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, is confined to an offence on indictment. A summary offence brought before the Crown Court solely on an unlawful committal for sentence is not an offence on indictment. The Crown Court has no jurisdiction to sentence for it, and the Court of Appeal cannot quash the underlying magistrates’ court conviction.

An appellate order made without jurisdiction is a nullity and may be withdrawn. The unlawful committal may instead be quashed by judicial review, with an appropriate lawful disposal made in the magistrates’ court.

The appellant pleaded guilty in the magistrates’ court to criminal damage of less than £5,000. He was committed to the Crown Court for sentence under section 6 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000, alongside indicted offences. The Crown Court imposed an overall sentence of 28 months’ imprisonment, including three weeks for the summary offence.

On 5 June 2019 the Court of Appeal reduced the overall sentence to 21 months and purported to quash the criminal-damage conviction because the committal was defective. The prosecution subsequently submitted that the court had lacked power to quash that underlying summary conviction. The issue was the proper means of correcting both the unlawful committal and the earlier ultra vires appellate order.

1. The court withdrew its earlier order quashing the criminal-damage conviction. That order was a nullity because the Court of Appeal had no jurisdiction to make it.

2. Section 1 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 confines the court’s relevant jurisdiction to an offence on indictment. Although the criminal-damage count had appeared in an earlier version of an indictment, it reached the Crown Court by committal for sentence. It was therefore never an offence on indictment for that purpose.

3. The magistrates’ court had no power under section 6 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 to commit this summary-only criminal-damage offence for sentence. None of the conditions in section 6(4) applied. The consequence was that the offence was not lawfully before the Crown Court and that court had no power to sentence for it.

4. Following the approach illustrated by R v Yasain [2015] EWCA Crim 1577, the court could correct its earlier want of jurisdiction by withdrawing the ultra vires order. Reconstituted as a Divisional Court, it granted permission for judicial review, dispensed with service and quashed the unlawful committal.

5. In the highly unusual circumstances, the presiding judge constituted himself as a district judge under section 66 of the Courts Act 2003. Having regard to the sentences on the indicted counts, he imposed an absolute discharge under section 12 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 for the summary offence.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On 5 June 2019, a differently constituted court reduced the overall sentence from 28 to 21 months and purported to quash the summary conviction. In this judgment, the court withdrew that ultra vires order.

• Crown Court at Maidstone: On 27 September 2018, imposed an overall sentence of 28 months’ imprisonment, including three weeks’ imprisonment for the summary criminal-damage offence.

• Maidstone Magistrates’ Court: On 9 August 2018, committed the appellant to the Crown Court for sentence for the summary offence. That committal was quashed on judicial review.