20 Jul

Defence POCA Application Success, £61 million reduced to £88,000.

Richard Atkins represented a client (Mr MacKenzie-Crow) on a POCA application on the 20/7/09 in which the Prosecution sought to claim a benefit figure of £61,090,273.00 with realisable assets of £100,000 and a claim for hidden assets. Following a detailed legal response from Richard Atkins in which he drew attention to the recent House of Lords cases of May, Green and Jennings, the Prosecution re-evaluated their application, and then submitted that the benefit figure was £2,460,198.00.

At the hearing of the application the Judge having heard evidence, rejected the Prosecution claim that £2,093,100.00 had been received in payment for the importation of cannabis, and found that the Defendant had received £76,000. Following this finding, the Judge adjourned proceedings for a short period of time, and the Prosecution then compromised the case, withdrawing their claim for hidden assets, accepting a benefit figure of £88,000 and accepting that the realisable assets were £76,000.00.