Not so innocent till proved guilty : Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:52 pm
We often get confusion on here whenever discussing criminal offences and criminal trials, and many have the simplistic view that if you are not found “guilty” then you are “innocent” and many firmly believe that that is the final and unequivocal position under English law. This is not so, as a case published recently demonstrates.In the case of Serious Organised Crime Agency v Hymans, Keeble and others it has been held that SOCA was entitled to civil recovery orders against individuals and a company in respect of property derived from the proceeds or profits of drug dealing and money laundering, despite the lack of criminal convictions for those offences.
The court stated that an acquittal in criminal proceedings did not conclusively establish that a defendant did not commit the criminal act alleged; just that the evidence against him was not enough to discharge the burden of proof (‘beyond reasonable doubt’), and SOCA had satisfied the court that, on the balance of probabilities, the property was derived from drug dealing on a big scale.
The whole of the defendants’ property, including properties in England and Spain, was thus liable to be confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act. All of it. This Act wasn’t, the court said, incompatible with Human Rights legislation, and that the court was not making imputations of criminal liability; The fact that the findings might implicitly cast doubt on an acquittal was not a breach of human rights.
So, defendants who have never been found guilty can still have all their property seized as proceeds of crime. I think this makes the point, but wonder what the Sin Bin panel makes of it?
