R v Stafford Justices, ex parte Customs and Excise Commissioners

Date

28 March 1990

Legislation

Customs and Excise Management Act 1970, s.170
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971
Prosecution of Offenders Act 1985, s.3

Keywords

private prosecutions; Director of Public Prosecution; judicial review

Counsel

J. Laws, J. Gosling for the Customs and Excise Commissioners, D. Naish for the defendant, Edmund Lawson Q.C., Ross Burns as amici curiae

Solicitors:

unknown

Judge:

Watkins LJ; Nolan J.

Court:

High Court (Divisional Court)

Reported:

[1991] 2 QB 339; [1990] Crim LR 742; [1990] 3 WLR 656; [1991] 2 All ER 201.

Summary:

Customs officers made covert observations on a house and the occupant and his family. The occupant was later arrested on suspicion of importing drugs. The house was searched and heroine worth £35,000 and approximately £10,000 in cash was found. The occupant and his accomplice were indicted on six counts contrary to s.170 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 and the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. A third person, Sabrina Lisles, was charged with operating three bank accounts used to launder the proceeds of the drugs operations.

The third charge was drafted by one of the customs officers. He took Sabrina Lisles, and the draft charge, before the custody officer at Wembley police station. That officer formally charged her, and admitted Sabrina Lisles to bail. In the records, the customs officer was stated to be the person who made the arrest, and the space set aside for the insertion of the name and rank of the "officer in the case" - a reference to a police officer – was left blank.

During the committal proceedings for Ms Lisles, the justices dismissed the informations against her on the basis that the Customs and Excise commissioners were not entitled to carry on her prosecution. The justices ruled that the proceedings against her had been instituted on behalf of a police force and could, therefore, only be conducted by the Crown Prosecution Service. Their ruling was based on section 3 of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 which states the scope of the duty of the Director of Public Prosecutions to take over conduct of all criminal cases.

Decision

On judicial review of the justices' decision, the Divisional Court held as follows:

• a custody officer in accepting a charge at a police station, no matter from whom, does so on behalf of the police force to which he belongs;
• Dixon's case was wrongly decided and should not be followed. [NB: Dixon's case ([1990] 2 QB 91) concerned a private prosecution under the Copyright Act 1956, the prosecutor being the Federation Against Copyright Theft Ltd. (FACT) or its officer, Mr. Dixon, who it was who charged the defendant. The justices in that case held that neither F.A.C.T nor Mr. Dixon was entitled to prosecute in the committal proceedings - the Crown Prosecution Service alone could do that - so they dismissed the information before them. In the Court of Appeal, where that decision was challenged, the justices were upheld];
• it is an incorrect view of the legislation that a person such as a customs officer who investigates the commission of an offence, arrests a person and takes him to a police station to be charged by a custody officer, thereby surrenders the prosecution of the proceedings to the Director of Public Prosecutions; hence
• proceedings can only be said to have been instituted on behalf of a police force when it is the police who have investigated, arrested and brought the arrested person to the custody officer.