The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, R (on the application of) v Manchester Crown Court

Account forfeiture under Part 5 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 is a civil recovery remedy. It is distinct from confiscation following conviction under Part 2. The applicant must prove, on the balance of probabilities, that the money is recoverable property. The person relying on an exception under section 308 must raise and prove that exception. A court must not import the confiscation regime’s assumptions, benefit calculation or burden of proof into account forfeiture proceedings. A prior confiscation order does not determine whether separate property is recoverable, particularly where the property was not taken into account in calculating the earlier benefit.

The Chief Constable sought judicial review of a decision of the Manchester Crown Court allowing Mr Imtiaz’s appeal against an account forfeiture order made by the magistrates’ court. The order forfeited £6,654 in a Monzo account under section 303 Z14 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

The Crown Court treated the proceedings as if they concerned confiscation under Part 2. It placed the burden on Mr Imtiaz, treated previous convictions as creating an assumption of illegality, and considered evidence of the benefit figure from an earlier confiscation order essential. The central issue was whether those errors of law required the Crown Court’s decision to be quashed and the appeal reheard.

1. Decision quashed and remitted. The Crown Court’s decision was quashed and the appeal was remitted for a fresh hearing.
2. The Crown Court had fundamentally mischaracterised the application. Part 5 account forfeiture does not depend on a conviction, does not engage the assumptions in section 10, and does not place on the respondent the burden of proving that the money came from a legitimate source. Under section 303 Z14(4)(a), the applicant had to prove on the balance of probabilities that the money was recoverable property.
3. The Crown Court consequently erred by failing to determine whether the statutory conditions for forfeiture were established, treating the earlier confiscation proceedings as determinative, and requiring proof that the account money formed part of the benefit from the offences for which Mr Imtiaz had been convicted.
4. The statutory exception in section 308(9), preventing recovery of property already taken into account in calculating benefit for a confiscation order, was different. Mr Imtiaz bore the burden of raising and proving that the exception applied. The general rule that the person asserting a fact must prove it, together with the respondent’s superior access to the relevant information, supported that allocation of the burden.
5. The absence of precise evidence about the earlier benefit figure could not justify dismissing the appeal. The Crown Court could have found on the evidence that the account money had not been included in the earlier confiscation calculation, or that it represented unlawful conduct by Hussain or others rather than the conduct underlying Mr Imtiaz’s conviction. It might also have granted a further adjournment to obtain relevant material.
6. The errors were not rendered immaterial by section 31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981. It was not highly likely that the outcome would have been substantially the same without them.

• Manchester Crown Court: On 9 December 2021, allowed Mr Imtiaz’s appeal against the magistrates’ account forfeiture order.
• High Court (Administrative Court): Quashed the Crown Court’s decision and remitted the appeal for a fresh hearing.