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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Chancery Division) Decisions >> Designated Officer for Sunderland Magistrates' Court v George Knowles Krager [2011] EWHC 3283 (Ch) (14 December 2011) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2011/3283.html Cite as: [2012] 1 WLR 1291, [2012] WLR 1291, [2011] EWHC 3283 (Ch) |
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CHANCERY DIVISION NEWCASTLE
DISTRICT REGISTRY
B e f o r e :
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Designated Officer for Sunderland Magistrates' Court |
Claimant |
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- and - |
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George Knowles Krager |
First Defendant |
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Lorraine Amanda Mason |
Second Defendant |
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The First Defendant did not attend and was not represented
Mr Stephen Fletcher (instructed by David Gray Solicitors) for the Second Defendant
Hearing date: 1 December 2011
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Crown Copyright ©
Mr Justice Briggs:
Introduction
Enforcement of Confiscation Orders
"(2) Sections 139(2) to (4) and (9) and 140(1) to (4) of the Sentencing Act (functions of court as to fines and enforcing fines) apply as if the amount ordered to be paid were a fine imposed on the defendant by the court making the confiscation order. "
"(1) .... a fine imposed... by the Crown Court shall be treated for the purposes of collection, enforcement and remission of the fine.... as having been imposed.... -
a) by a magistrates' court specified in an order made by the Crown Court, or
b) if no such order is made, by the magistrates' court by which the offender was committed to the Crown Court be tried or dealt with...
and, in the case of a fine, as having been so imposed on conviction by the magistrates' court in question. "
It was the Sunderland Magistrates' Court which committed Mr Krager for the trial at which the confiscation order was made. No other magistrates' court was specified pursuant to s. 140 (1)(a) in the confiscation order.
"(1)... payment of a sum adjudged to be paid by a conviction of a magistrates' court may be enforced by the High Court or a county court (otherwise than by issue of a writ of fieri facias or other process against goods or by imprisonment or attachment of earnings) as if the sum were due to the designated officer for the magistrates' court in pursuance of a judgment or order of the High Court or county court, as the case may be. "
It is common ground that the claimant is the designated officer for the Sunderland Magistrates' Court within the meaning of Section 87(1).
"It is equally clear to me that, the sole jurisdiction to deal with all matters of restraint, confiscation, and enforcement now resides in the Crown Court..."
But he was speaking of the legislative changes made by POCA in 2002 which removed into the Crown Court an earlier enforcement jurisdiction originally conferred upon the High Court. Webber v Webber was not about enforcement by the section 35 route, nor does any reference to that section appear in the judgment. I have no doubt at all that the President did not intend to suggest that civil enforcement of a confiscation order as a deemed judgment debt, by the ordinary methods of enforcement available to judgment creditors, was thereby removed to the Crown Court.
Locus standi
"If at any stage in proceedings commenced in a county court or transferred to a county court under section 40, the High Court thinks it desirable. that the proceedings, or any part of them, should be heard and determined in the High Court, it may order the transfer to the High Court of the proceedings or, as the case may be, of that part of them. "