David Emanuel QC, of the Garden Court Chambers Criminal Defence Team, acted for Hanif Patel.
David Emanuel QC, acting via the public access scheme, drafted the application to the CCRC which persuaded them to refer Hanif Patel’s conviction to the Court of Appeal last year.
David, who did not appear at the original trial or at the first appeal, identified a failure by the trial judge (missed by trial counsel) to give an essential direction (on mens rea) in the summing up.
HP had been convicted in 2014 at Preston Crown Court of an offence contrary to section 46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007, namely encouraging or assisting in the theft of over £5 million of carbon credits from the Carbon Emission Registry in the Czech Republic. The appeal involved complicated statutory provisions on extraterritoriality and questions as to the requisite intent in cases where offences have taken place partly overseas.
The Court of Appeal accepted all David’s submissions as regards the failings that took place at trial and quashed the conviction directing that it would not be in the public interest for there to be a retrial.
