Key Facts
- •Appeal against the Legal Aid Agency's (LAA) decision to pay only one case fee for the defendant's criminal proceedings.
- •Defendant faced two indictments: one for money laundering and one for conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
- •Indictments were joined, and the money laundering indictment was stayed.
- •Appellant argued two case fees were payable under the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013.
- •LAA argued only one case fee was payable as the indictments were joined.
Legal Principles
Definition of 'case' in the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013: proceedings in the Crown Court against one assisted person on one or more counts of a single indictment.
Schedule 1, paragraph 1(1), Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013
If two or more indictments are joined, there is only one case for fee purposes.
R v Ayomanor (SC-2020-CRI-000146, 12 January 2021), R v Arbas Khan (SCCO 219/18, 5 April 2019)
The fact that an original indictment was stayed or quashed is not determinative of whether there were two cases; focus is on whether indictments were joined.
R v Hussain and Others [2011] 4 Costs L.R. 689, various subsequent cases
A 'cracked trial' fee is not payable if the charge is still proceeding to trial.
Judgement of Costs Judge Leonard
Even if substantial work was done on a stayed indictment before joinder, if the indictments were joined, only one fee is payable. This aligns with the "swings and roundabouts" principle of graduated fee schemes.
R v Hussain and Others [2011] 4 Costs L.R. 689, R v Horsfall [2023] EWHC 3128 (SCCO)
Outcomes
Appeal dismissed.
The joinder of the two indictments resulted in a single case under the 2013 Regulations, regardless of the prior work on the stayed indictment. The court found that a stay of the money laundering indictment was not inconsistent with its joinder with the drug indictment.