Success for Penelope Small & NCA in CoA

Penelope Small, supported by a team from the NCA successfully establish that the Crown Court has an inherent jurisdiction to deal with false statement contempt.

In R v Mayhew-Lewis [2022] EWCA Crim 797 heard on the 26th May 2022 the Court of Appeal Criminal Division confirmed for the first time that the Crown Court retained an inherent jurisdiction to deal with false statement contempt arising in this case from witness statements certified as being truthful, served by the Appellant in both Restraint Proceedings and in earlier Crown Court contempt proceedings.

The Court of Appeal also accepted the NCA’s submission that there is no requirement to bring substantive criminal proceedings in such a case.

The findings of the Crown Court Judge that the Appellant had made false statements in his disclosure statement served in compliance with a Restraint Order granted by the Crown Court sitting at Southwark under the provisions of the POCA 2002 was upheld; as were the Crown Court Judge’s findings that false statements had been made by the Appellant is a statement he served in support of an application to discharge the Restraint Order and subsequently in a statement he submitted in mitigation following his admission of earlier contempts of the Crown Court Restraint Order.

The Court of Appeal also rejected the suggestion that the Learned Judge at first instance should have recused himself on the grounds of bias.

The Court of Appeal removed one concurrent penalty imposed for one of the breaches but upheld the totality of the sentence imposed by the Learned Judge at first instance namely a warrant of commitment of 10 months duration which included the activation of part of the earlier warrant of commitment which had been suspended following the earlier contempt proceedings.

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