R v Deepankar Dixit

A trial judge need not isolate every uncontentious element of an offence in a separate question on a route to verdict. Directions are sufficient where, read fairly with the indictment and the way the case was presented, they fully identify the statutory ingredients and leave the jury in no doubt about the issue to be proved.

Under Theft Act 1968, concurrence in the falsification of an accounting record is itself a mode of committing false accounting as a principal. A joint-enterprise direction concerning a co-defendant will not render another defendant’s conviction unsafe where the case against that defendant was direct commission of the offence and the direction did not affect that case.

R v Deepankar Dixit concerned a solicitor convicted by a jury on 21 November 2019 of false accounting contrary to section 17(1)(a) of the Theft Act 1968. The prosecution alleged that cash fees received from immigration clients had been omitted from the firm’s StrongBox accounting system.

Nearly three years later, the applicant made a renewed application for an extension of time and for leave to appeal against conviction. He contended that the indictment and directions failed adequately to address whether StrongBox was made or required for an accounting purpose. He also challenged a joint-enterprise direction, including an oral slip in which the judge reversed the defendants’ names.

The central issues were whether either complaint rendered the conviction arguably unsafe and whether a very substantial extension of time was justified.

1. The applications were refused. Neither ground disclosed an arguable basis for contending that the conviction was unsafe. There was therefore no purpose in granting an extension of time, and no good reason had been given for the delay of about three years.

2. The indictment, as amended, properly alleged false accounting under section 17(1)(a) of the Theft Act 1968. The trial judge’s directions correctly stated the elements of the offence and the three questions for the jury fully addressed falsification, dishonesty and gain or loss.

3. A separate fourth question about whether StrongBox was made or required for an accounting purpose was unnecessary. Solicitors had to keep accounts, and the defendants had chosen StrongBox to record most of the firm’s transactions. On the evidence and the way the case was presented, there could be no sensible issue that it was an accounting record. The jury would have understood that this formed part of the prosecution case, so the directions could not arguably have caused an unsafe conviction.

4. Concurrence in another person’s falsification of an accounting record is, by the drafting of section 17, a way of committing the offence as a principal. A joint-enterprise direction may therefore have been unnecessary for the co-defendant. It did not affect the applicant, against whom the prosecution case was that he directly falsified the records.

5. The judge’s reversal of the defendants’ names while orally reading the joint-enterprise direction was an obvious slip. The written direction supplied to the jury was correct, and the jury could not realistically have misunderstood the prosecution case after a deliberation exceeding seven hours.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On a renewed application, refused an extension of time and leave to appeal against conviction: [2023] EWCA Crim 1519.
• Crown Court (not otherwise identified): A jury convicted the applicant of false accounting on 21 November 2019.