Charlotte Finch v R

For a child relying on section 45(4) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, compulsion is not a necessary element of the defence. Where forced or compulsory labour is relied on, the child must have offended because they were put under pressure, although the pressure need not have left no realistic alternative. The expression menace of penalty is legally sound but may confuse a jury and should not be used where explanatory factors adequately convey the concept. A conviction may remain safe where the directions, read overall, fairly state the statutory test and the jury safely rejects the reasonable-person limb. Recruitment alone does not establish the trafficking limb: arranging or facilitating travel must be shown, although the precise connection between recruitment and travel was left undecided.

Following a jury trial at the Crown Court at Southwark, the appellant was convicted of five offences involving conspiracies to convey prohibited articles into prison, supply controlled drugs and transmit images or sound from prison. She was acquitted of seven other offences and received a three-year community order.

She appealed against conviction on the ground that the judge had wrongly directed the jury that forced or compulsory labour for the purposes of section 45(4) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 required a menace of penalty. She also sought leave to argue that the trafficking limb had been wrongly limited to arranged or facilitated travel rather than recruitment. The central issues concerned the meaning of forced or compulsory labour in the child defence and the scope of the trafficking limb.

Appeal dismissed; leave to pursue the proposed new ground refused.

1. The fact that defence counsel had agreed the directions did not absolve the appellate court from considering their legal accuracy, although that agreement could be relevant to the safety of the convictions.
2. Section 45(3)(a) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was read as extending to each reference to slavery in section 45. Forced or compulsory labour under section 1 could therefore amount to slavery for the purposes of the child defence in section 45(4). Unlike the adult defence, compulsion was not a necessary element of the child defence.
3. The expression menace of penalty was legally sound, as the discussion in Basfar v Wong [2022] UKSC 20 showed, but it was not useful for directing a jury in a child case. Its meaning was not self-evident and it could suggest too high a threshold. The factors identified in the judge’s directions were sufficient to explain that forced or compulsory labour meant that the child offended because they had been put under pressure, without requiring pressure so powerful as to leave no realistic alternative.
4. Although the phrase was unsuitable, the directions read as a whole were fair and balanced. The psychiatric evidence was chiefly relevant to the reasonable-person limb of section 45(4)(c). The jury was sure that a reasonable person with the appellant’s relevant characteristics and in her situation would not have committed the offences. That finding was sufficient to make the convictions safe.
5. The trafficking direction correctly identified recruitment as one way of arranging or facilitating travel. The court refused leave on the proposed ground because there was no evidence connecting the appellant’s recruitment with any arranged or facilitated travel. The court did not decide the wider question of the precise connection required between recruitment and travel. The same conclusion under the reasonable-person limb was fatal to both routes to the defence.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): [2026] EWCA Crim 477 — appeal against conviction dismissed and leave to pursue the proposed new ground refused.
• Crown Court at Southwark: the appellant was convicted of five offences, acquitted of seven others and sentenced to a three-year community order. No separate citation is stated in the judgment.