R v Abada
[2022] EWHC 2926 (SCCO)
R v O'Sullivan
28 May 2024
[2024] EWHC 1318 (SCCO)
Senior Courts Costs Office
A lawyer appealed because they thought they should get paid twice for representing a client on two related criminal charges. Even though a lot of work was done before the charges were combined, the judge ruled that because they were ultimately combined into one case, the lawyer only gets paid once. This follows established legal rules about how legal aid payments work.
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.