R v. RM - Peterborough Crown Court
This case provides an example of how a social supply can turn out to be quite expensive!
Our client had been involved in the provision of cannabis to his friends. There were text messages on his phone confirming the same, and he received a short prison sentence because of the nature of the offence. We had not represented the defendant in his substantive proceedings and were only instructed in the Poca case. Our client's former solicitors had not properly advised him about the impact of the confiscation proceedings.
On receipt of the prosecutions section 16 statement we were surprised to learn the prosecution were asking for benefit in the region of £600,000. It appeared that the prosecution was trying to suggest that the entire text message history accumulated over a six-year period was drug-related.
We had to take detailed instructions from our client and analyse 24,000 text messages out of which we had to identify the words that related to the social supply of drugs. We were able to show that when taken in context, his offending was consistent with providing cannabis to his close friends only.
On submission of our section 17 statement and the work that we had done the prosecution conceded that their initial position had been unreasonable and agreed on a benefit figure and realisable amount of £10,000.
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