R v QX 2025
On 24 March 2021, QX was convicted at Leicester Crown Court of three counts of breaking the requirements of a Temporary Exclusion Order, contrary to section 10(3) of the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015. On the same day, he was sentenced to a suspended sentence order. The court also ordered him to pay a surcharge of £122 and prosecution costs of £1,000, which have been paid.
QX subsequently engaged in civil proceedings against the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which ultimately reached the Supreme Court.
On 16 June 2025, the Temporary Exclusion Order was quashed by consent in the Administrative Court. The Secretary of State for the Home Department agreed that the order should be quashed ab initio (see note below). The Secretary of State accepted that as a result, QX's convictions stood to be quashed if he brought an appeal under the provisions of the 2015 Act.
QX brought this appeal against conviction pursuant to Schedule 4 to the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015. QX has been granted anonymity in both these appeal proceedings and the previous civil proceedings.
The case came to the Court because QX exercised his statutory right of appeal after the Temporary Exclusion Order upon which his convictions were based was quashed.
QX sought to have his conviction quashed pursuant to Schedule 4 of the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015, following the quashing of the Temporary Exclusion Order.
Held
Appeal allowed.
The Court allowed the appeal and quashed QX's convictions for three counts of breaking the requirements of a Temporary Exclusion Order contrary to section 10(3) of the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015. The court identified that there are statutory preconditions which must be met before it is obliged to allow an appeal under Schedule 4 to the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015.
First precondition: there must be a qualifying conviction under section 10(3) of the Act - the court found this was made out as QX had been convicted of three counts of breaking the requirements of a Temporary Exclusion Order.
Second precondition: the Temporary Exclusion Order which was the basis of the conviction must have been quashed - the court found this was also made out, as the order had been quashed by consent on 16 June 2025.
The court noted that the order was quashed ab initio, meaning it was treated as if it had never existed. The court observed that the Secretary of State had explicitly accepted that the convictions stood to be quashed if QX brought an appeal under the provisions of the 2015 Act. Given these findings, the court determined it had "no choice" but to quash the convictions, as paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 4 mandates that the court "must allow the appeal and quash the conviction". The court further reasoned that as a consequence of quashing the convictions, both the suspended sentence order and the financial orders must also be quashed.
Reproduced with permission of Reed Elsevier (UK) Limited, trading as LexisNexis.
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