A lawyer appealed the amount of money they were paid for preparing a drug case. The case hinged on phone data, and the judge decided the lawyer should get more money because they needed to look at more of the phone data than originally decided. The lawyer won some of the appeal, and the other side has to pay their legal costs.
Key Facts
- •Defendant charged with possession of controlled drugs and criminal property.
- •Police found defendant in a property with drugs, cash, and paraphernalia.
- •Defendant's unlocked iPhone (Exhibit RBK/2) was seized and analyzed.
- •Defendant pleaded guilty but disputed the extent of his involvement.
- •A Newton hearing was held to determine the defendant's role.
- •Litigator submitted a trial fee claim based on 10,000 pages of prosecution evidence (PPE), assessed and paid on the basis of 1,399 PPE.
- •Appeal concerned the assessment of PPE from the defendant's phone data.
Legal Principles
Determination of the number of pages of prosecution evidence (PPE) to be included in a trial fee claim.
The Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013, Schedule 2, paragraph 1
Outcomes
Appeal partially successful.
The Respondent made concessions on several categories of phone data. The Costs Judge reviewed the remaining disputed categories ('Files & Media', 'General info, Network info, Event Log, Installed Apps', and 'Web Related Data') and adjusted the allowed PPE accordingly, balancing the importance of attribution to sentencing against the relevance of the data.
Respondent to pay Appellant's costs of the appeal and an additional £1,000 in costs plus the court fee.
The appeal was successful due to the concessions made by the respondent.