Prosecutors going over the top
02 Oct 2012

From time to time the appeal courts quash convictions where prosecutors have gone rather over the top in stretching the statutory language of an offence to cover situations the offence was not intended to cover.

The law in relation to money laundering is widely drawn and (at least to non-lawyers!) somewhat counter-intuitive (which is a polite way of saying the law can be an ass). One of the features of money laundering law is that an asset is only ‘criminal property’ if it is (directly or indirectly) derived from crime AND the alleged money launderer knows or suspects this to be the case.

In one relatively recent Court of Appeal hearing some of the issues took on an Alice in Wonderland aspect because the court was considering what the defendant ‘knew or suspected’ although the truth was in fact quite different.

The truth was that a fraud had been perpetrated and the fraudster had passed part of the proceeds to a Mr Harrington to launder. In order to do that Mr Harrington persuaded a friend of his, Mr Geary, to bank over £100,000 in his bank account and return it to him later (less a few thousand pounds which Mr Geary kept for his trouble).

But Mr Harrington told Mr Geary a cock and bull story that he was about to get divorced and wanted to hide the money from his wife (and from the divorce courts). Mr Geary knew nothing of the fraud which was the true source of the money (Mr Harrington had, in truth, no prospect of being involved in divorce).

In due course the police caught up with the fraud and followed the money. The fraudsters were charged with various offences and Mr Geary was charged with “entering into an arrangement” contrary to s328 Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

When the Crown Court judge heard Mr Geary’s defence he pointed out that what Mr Geary thought he was doing (agreeing with a husband to conceal assets from the divorce court) would amount to a criminal offence of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. So, it was argued, the money in question was ‘criminal property’ as far as Mr Geary was concerned because he ‘knew or suspected’ it to be proceeds of crime (albeit a completely different crime from the actual fraud). On being told that Mr Geary changed his plea to guilty.

But then he appealed his conviction to the Court of Appeal.

For the outcome of Mr Geary’s appeal (and another case involving a Mr Dare) read the following blog article “Money laundering – entering into an arrangement – s328 PoCA 2002”.

http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/group-thread/prosecutors-going-over-top