[2008] EWCA Crim 1809

Although it would not necessarily be oppressive for the prosecution to pursue confiscation proceedings where there was an enormous disparity between the amount of the defendant's gain from offences involving fraud and the amount of the confiscation order, it would be oppressive for the prosecution to rely on the form of the counts (i) to bring the criminal lifestyle provisions into operation when they could not have applied if the charges had reflected that the extent of the fraud was much less than the threshold of £5,000, and (ii) to advance the contention that the defendant had benefited to an extent several hundred times that amount.

CA (Crim Div) (Hughes LJ, Dobbs J, Judge Pert QC)

31/07/2008