Key Facts
- •Appeal concerning payment to defence solicitors under the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013.
- •Appeal relates to the calculation of Pages of Prosecution Evidence (PPE) under the Litigators’ Graduated Fee Scheme.
- •Two indictments against the defendant: murder and drug offences.
- •Indictments were not joined, but treated as one case by the Crown and court.
- •Determining Officer assessed PPE for the drug case at zero, despite served evidence.
- •Appellant claimed payment based on a PPE count of 10,000 for both cases.
- •Dispute centered on whether duplicate evidence should be counted twice.
Legal Principles
Interpretation of the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013, specifically Schedule 2 regarding PPE calculation.
Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013
Avoiding absurd outcomes in statutory interpretation.
Project Blue Ltd v Revenue and Customs Commissioners [2018] UKSC 30; R (Edison First Power) v Central Valuation Officer [2003] 4 All ER 209; Re British Concrete Pipe Association’s Agreement [1983] ICR 215
Purposive interpretation of the Graduated Fee Scheme to avoid unworkability.
R v. Thomas [2022] EWHC 2842 (SCCO)
Court lacks power to rewrite regulations; regulations must be applied mechanistically.
R. v Hussain [2011] 4 Costs L.R. 689
Outcomes
Appeal successful.
Determining Officer's approach of assigning zero PPE to the drug case was wrong in principle. Regulations do not permit exclusion of paper evidence based on duplication in another case. While the Crown's poor case management led to the situation, the court cannot reinterpret the regulations to avoid a perceived windfall.
Appropriate additional payment to be made to the Appellant, including £750 costs.
The PPE count for the drug case should be the same as the murder case (7,185 pages of paper PPE) because the Crown failed to distinguish evidence across the cases. The claim for electronic PPE is rejected due to duplication.