Latest Cases

Criminal law – Proceeds of crime. The judge had been right to conclude that the defendant had been the beneficial owner of the property subject to a charge and had been right to include the value of that interest in the available assets for the purposes of the confiscation proceedings as he had. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, dismissed the defendant's appeal against a confiscation order of £43,344.01, following his conviction for production of cannabis.

Conflict of laws – Jurisdiction. The claimant's application for a declaration that, among other things, the courts of England and Wales had no power under the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 to determine any of the causes in issue failed. Among other things, the court held that an anchor claim issued after the relevant claim was capable of conferring judgment, provided that the other requirements of the anchor provisions were satisfied.

Fish – Salmon and trout. The defendant Environment Agency (the Agency) was ordered to pay the first claimant £187, 278 in compensation, following an earlier finding that its decisions to impose conditions on his licence to fish for salmon in the river Severn using a putcher rank, limiting his permitted catch, were each unlawful in the absence of compensation, by reason of their interference with his right to property under art 1 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights. The Administrative Court further refused the second claimant permission to proceed with his separate claim against the Agency, holding that, while he was entitled to put forward a claim as a joint holder of the property right infringed, the Agency could not justly be required to pay twice over and the claimants could not both claim the whole loss.

Insolvency – Petition. The applicant company's application for a bankruptcy petition succeeded. The Chancery Division dismissed the opposing creditor's application for a second adjournment to consider an IVA. The court made an order on the petition.

Capital allowances – Claims. The words of para 82(1) of Sch 18 to the Finance Act 1998 were clear and unambiguous: a claim for capital allowances could be made at any time up to whichever was the last of the four dates specified in subparagraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d). Consequently, the Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) dismissed the appeal by the Revenue and Customs Commissioners against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber), taking the view that the FTT had correctly held that as the taxpayer's claims for capital allowances had fallen within para 82(1)(b) of Sch 18, they had been timeously made.

Damages – Personal injury. The claimant was entitled to damages of £79,755, as there was little difficulty in concluding that she had established, on the balance of probabilities, that she had been the subject of five further occasions of abuse by the defendant, in addition to two occasions for which he had been convicted of sexual abuse. The Queen's Bench Division awarded £10,000 as aggravated damages, and special damages of £10,530 for therapy and travelling costs.

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The decisions in both cases to grant planning permission were affected by an error of law related to the failure to undertake appropriate assessment. However, the Administrative Court held that the decision would inevitably have been the same in the first case, but that test was not passed in second case and, therefore, in that latter case the defendant Secretary of State's decision to grant planning permission had to be quashed.

Contempt of court – Committal. Tommy Robinson was committed to prison for a period of 19 weeks and had to be released once half of that period had been served. The Divisional Court imposed that penalty for his reckless disobedience of an important court order imposed to protect the integrity of a trial and subsequent trials, and of conduct which created a substantial risk of a serious impediment to the integrity of the trial process.

Value added tax – Input tax. The provision of the cars by the taxpayer NHS Trust to its employees under a salary sacrifice scheme (the car scheme) could not be regarded as a supply of services because it had been de-supplied by the Value Added Tax (Treatment of Transactions) Order 1992, SI 1992/630. It followed that the leasing of the cars by the Trust could not be an economic activity because that required a supply of services. However, pursuant to s 41(3) of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 and para 3 of the Contracted Out Services Direction, the four-year limit imposed by the Revenue and Customs Commissioners was reasonable. Consequently, the Upper Tribunal (Tax Chamber) allowed the Trust's claim for recovery of all of the VAT incurred in relation to the car scheme but limited the claim to the period from 1 October 2012 to 31 January 2017.

Criminal evidence – Missing evidence. The judge had been right to allow the case to proceed when evidence gathered by the police, relevant to the defendant's defence, had been destroyed by water damage and had been unavailable for the trial. The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, having set out guidance on situations of missing records, dismissed the defendant's appeal against conviction for indecency with a child.