Inferior Number Sentencing – attempting to remove criminal property
from Jersey, contrary to Article 31(1)(d) of the Proceeds of Crime (Jersey) Law
1999.
[2016]JRC175
Royal Court
(Samedi)
30 September 2016
|
Before :
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W. J. Bailhache, Esq., Bailiff, and Jurats
Liston and Thomas
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The Attorney General
-v-
Carl James Turney
Sentencing by the Inferior
Number of the Royal Court, following a guilty plea to the following charge:
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1 count of:
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Attempting to remove criminal property from
Jersey, contrary to Article 31(1)(d) of the Proceeds of Crime (Jersey) Law
1999 (Count 1).
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Age: 29.
Plea: Guilty.
Details of Offence:
The defendant was stopped when
boarding the ferry to the UK. When
asked he admitted to customs officers that a large amount of cash was concealed
in his vehicle. He told officers
where to look and they located £42,000 cash in the passenger door, mostly
Jersey notes. The defendant told
officers he was approached by a male in the UK and was motivated by a financial
reward of £1,000 upon his return to the UK.
Details of Mitigation:
Co-operative with investigation,
early admissions, remorse, the Court noted that the defendant had significant
support from his family.
Previous Convictions:
Several previous convictions
although none are directly relevant to the current offending.
Conclusions:
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Count 1:
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2 years’ imprisonment, suspended for a
period of 2 years.
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Forfeiture in the sum of
£42,000 sought.
Declaration of benefit sought in
the sum of £700.
No Confiscation Order sought.
Sentence and Observations of Court:
The Court stated it
was an extremely serious offence and adopted the principles set out in AG v
Goodwin [2016] JRC 146.
The Court also held
that this case was exceptional and that in normal circumstances a significant
prison sentence in excess of 2 years’ imprisonment. In this case the Court found the
defendant’s medical and psychological problems were exceptional.
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Count 1:
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2 years’ imprisonment, suspended for a
period of 2 years.
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Forfeiture in the sum of
£42,000 ordered under Article 2 of the Criminal Justice (Forfeiture
Orders)(Jersey) Law 2001.
Declaration of benefit in the sum
of £700.
No Confiscation Order made.
R. C. P. Pedley, Esq., Crown Advocate.
Advocate J. M. Grace for the Defendant.
JUDGMENT
THE BAILIFF:
1.
Mr Turney,
you are here to be sentenced on one count of attempting to remove criminal
property from the Island, contrary to Article 31 of the Proceeds of Crime
(Jersey) Law 1999 in that you had concealed in the door panel of a sliver
Mercedes the sum of £42,000 in cash.
You suspected or knew that this represented the proceeds of drug
trafficking, and it is right that I say at the outset that this is an extremely
serious offence.
2.
The facts
behind the offence were these. You
were travelling alone; on being stopped you were spoken to by customs officers,
the search of the vehicle was completed, there was no sign of any controlled
drugs but later on when you were on the way back you were asked if you were
carrying anything and the customs officers were told that you were carrying a
large amount of cash which could be found within the rear left passenger door. £42,000 had been concealed, as I
said. You had been approached by a
man who knew you came to Jersey frequently. He had offered to pay you £1000 if
you collected some cash and £500 to pay for your travel and accommodation
and you told customs officers that you were more afraid of the male in the UK
than of what was going to happen to you as a result of this offending.
3.
The Court
is invited by the Crown to declare benefit that you have made in the sum of
£700, which we do. We do not
make a confiscation order because you appear to have no assets of your own, but
we do make an order for forfeiture of the £42,000 seized from you under
Article 2 of the Criminal Justice (Forfeiture Orders) (Jersey) Law 2001.
4.
Mr Turney,
you have parents who have supported you through a period of gambling addiction,
and you have a wife and two children.
What you have done has imperilled three generations of your family. It is quite obvious to this Court that
you urgently need to attend Gamblers Anonymous or get some similar help from
elsewhere.
5.
It was
said to us by Counsel that there have been few cases involving the laundering
of drug trafficking proceeds, but the Court proceeds today on the basis of the
Superior Number decision of this Court in the case of AG-v-Goodwin [2016]
JRC 165. Judgment was handed down
on 15th September.
6.
In that
case it was made perfectly clear that there was a change in sentencing policy
and that the cases of AG-v-Michel [2007] JRC 120 and AG-V-Bhojwani
[2007] JRC 120 which have been referred to should no longer be regarded as
setting the standard for sentencing in this Court. I quote some of the paragraphs from the
Court’s judgment in the case of Goodwin.
“4. Money laundering is a serious offence
which, by virtue of the Drug Trafficking Offences (Jersey) Law 1988
(“the Law”), carries a potential sentence of 14 years’
imprisonment or an unlimited fine.
This Court has previously had regard to the English authority of R v
Monfries [2004] 2 Cr. App. R.(S) 3, in which the English Court of Appeal
set out a number of principles:-
(i) There
is not necessarily a direct relationship between the sentence for the
laundering offence and the original antecedent offence. Where, however, the particular
antecedent offence can be identified, some regard will be had to the
appropriate sentence for that offence when considering the appropriate sentence
for the laundering offence.
(ii) The criminality in laundering is
the assistance, support and encouragement it provides to criminal conduct.
(iii) Regard should be had to the extent of
the launderer’s knowledge of the antecedent offence.
(iv) The amount of money laundered is a
relevant factor.
5. In
AG v Gomes and others [2007] JRC 129, the Court indicated that in
addition to these principles, regard should be had to the period of time during
which the money laundering occurs.
6. In
Bhojwani v AG [2011] JCA 034, the following principles were added:-
(i) No
distinction is to be drawn as a matter of law between the laundering of
one’s own proceeds of crime and the proceeds of crime committed by third
parties.
(ii) A professional money laundering
service is not necessarily more serious than laundering the proceeds of a one
off fraud – it may be so, but each case will depend on its own
facts.
(iii) The interests of Jersey as a finance
centre justified an element of deterrence in the sentence.
7. In
AG v Bhojwani [2010] JRC 116, the Royal Court had held that the
duration, sophistication and scale of money laundering are also relevant
considerations.”
At paragraph 12 in the case of Goodwin
the Court said this:-
“12. It is clear that the proceeds of drug trafficking
in the instant case included the proceeds of trafficking in Class A drugs,
because there were traces of MDMA or ecstasy found on some of the cash which
was seized on a search of the defendant’s home both in 2012 and again in
2015. The maximum sentence for
trafficking in Class A drugs is life imprisonment; and the maximum for
trafficking in Class B drugs is 14 years’ imprisonment. Advocate Gollop did not dissent from the
proposition that just as there would not for the most part be thieves without
receivers, there would not be drug traffickers without money launderers. There would be a very much reduced
purpose in drug trafficking if the proceeds could not provide a benefit to the
drug trafficker.”
I really want to emphasise that point to
you because the drug trafficking causes real damage to the people of this
Island and by assisting drug traffickers in money laundering their proceeds of
drug trafficking you too have caused a damage to the people of this
Island. When you look at your own
children and you think of drug traffickers having access to them you might like
to think about the damage that you have done in this particular case.
7.
Mr Goodwin
was sent to prison for a period of 6 years. The amount of money which he had
laundered was considerably more than is the case here. In his case the total was £596,000
and he did it over a 6-year period and, as your Counsel says here, only one
incidence is involved. But
nonetheless £42,000 represents a considerable sum of money and a
considerable amount of drug trafficking.
8.
We want to
make it plain in this case that we adopt the principles of Goodwin which
we think is right, not only because it is a Superior Number decision we must
apply. Although we are adopting
that case there are some differences which we ought to mention, as we do. The first is that in that case the joint
accounts used by Mr Goodwin implicated others, his wife and his daughter; that
feature does not appear here.
Secondly, he also lied when first subject to investigation and he
attempted to pervert the course of justice in that connection. It was a much more sophisticated money
laundering case and we should also note that in that case there was at least a
mix of Class A and Class B drugs, or there may have been Class A drugs alone. We do not know what drugs were involved
in this case, but in a sense the fact that you did not know what drugs were the
subject of your money laundering of the proceeds of drug trafficking, in a
sense the fact that you did not know, does not stand to your credit because you
could easily have been helping the drug traffickers deal with trafficking in
heroin or other Class A drugs.
9.
In normal
circumstances, there is no doubt at all that this offence you have committed
calls for a significant prison sentence.
It may well call for a prison sentence in excess of 2 years’
imprisonment and we absolutely do not accept the suggestion from your Counsel
that a proper sentence would have been 12 months suspended.
10. We have had regard to all the mitigation which
has been put before us; the fact that your record does not link you to
organised crime, your immediate and full cooperation and admissions with the
customs officers, we note that you have remorse and we accept that
completely. We also endorse what
your Counsel has said that you are very lucky to have your parents’
support. We note that you have not
benefitted personally, because in fact you were unsuccessful, although you
would have benefitted to the tune of £1000 if you had been
successful. In normal circumstances,
as I say, that offending would give rise to a significant immediate custodial
sentence. For exceptional reasons
in this case, which we list as the medical conditions from which you suffer,
the psychological conditions which are referred to in the papers and, indeed,
having special regard to all the papers before the Court, we are going to take
the view that the sentence should be suspended. Because it is to be suspended the
maximum sentence we can impose is 2 years’ imprisonment, although we
would in normal circumstances, if it were an immediate custodial sentence,
certainly have considered a higher sentence.
11. On the one count on the Indictment on which you
fall to be sentenced you are sentenced to 2 years’ imprisonment, which will
be suspended for a period of 2 years.
That means that if you commit any other offences, whether here or
anywhere else during that period, you are liable to be brought back to this
Island and the sentence will be activated and you will serve your sentence. I want you to think carefully about all
the things I have said to you.
Authorities
Proceeds of Crime (Jersey) Law 1999.
Criminal Justice (Forfeiture Orders)
(Jersey) Law 2001.
AG-v-Goodwin
[2016] JRC 165.
AG
v Bhojwani [2010] JRC 116.
AG-v-Michel
[2007] JRC 120
AG-v-Cleaver
[2016] JRC 080.
AG-v-Bhojwani
[2010] JLR N 34.
AG-v-McFeat,
Smyth and Howard [2013] (2) JLR N 11.
AG-v-McFeat,
Smyth and Howard [2013] JRC 137.
AG-v-Adam
[2015] JRC 215.
Whelan on Aspects of Sentencing in
the Superior Court of Jersey.