Ghaffar v R 2026
G, was a barrister involved in defending criminal proceedings known as "the Miah case" involving money laundering and unlawful employment offences connected to two restaurants. On 9 September 2011, two defendants pleaded guilty and the Crown offered no evidence against the remaining four defendants in the Miah case. Between 11 September 2011 and 3 October 2012, the defendants originally named on the indictment in the present case had conspired to submit claims for defendants' costs to National Taxing Team containing items of work that had not been done. Claims totalling over £1.8 million were made, with approximately £470,000 paid out of central funds. G received about £147,000, the largest amount obtained by any defendant.
Material payments included £42,930 from Appleby Shaw to G, £21,825 to Equitas Chambers for his junior, and £22,500 from Ainsley Harris to Equitas Chambers. G opened a bank account in September 2012 in his name trading as "Kandi Consulting" which received payments totalling approximately £59,000 from Appleby Shaw and Ainsley Harris.
Following a 24-day trial, G was convicted on 14 February 2024 and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. G sought leave to appeal against conviction and to rely on fresh evidence from Farhad Hussain, Mohammed Tahir Khan, and Tina David under Section 23 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968. The single judge referred the application to the full court.
G submitted that Hussain's evidence confirmed the defence case that payments to Kandi Consulting were for services rendered by Hussain and were not payments to G. G contended that the Kandi payments were of central importance to the Crown's case. It was argued that the evidence about the opening of the bank account was a central element of the Crown's attack on G's credibility and that Hussain's evidence would have undermined that attack and bolstered G's credibility. G submitted that it was entirely possible that the jury had concluded they could not be sure that G was party to any fraudulent conspiracy in relation to payments made directly to him but only those made to Kandi Consulting.
The Crown submitted that Hussain's evidence was simply not credible given the complete absence of any business records and any independent evidence of the business in operation. The Crown emphasised that by the time of G's trial, the convictions of former co-defendants evidenced the conspiracy to commit fraud and there was no dispute that claims submitted contained false information.
Held
Appeal dismissed.
The Court of Appeal declined to receive any of the fresh evidence which G sought to put before the court and refused leave to appeal against conviction. The court concluded that having regard to the factors in Section 23(2) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, it was patently neither in the interests of justice nor expedient for the court to receive the evidence from Farhad Hussain, Mohammed Tahir Khan, or Tina David. The application for leave to appeal against conviction was therefore dismissed.
The court found Hussain's evidence that Kandi Consulting was a genuine business was not capable of belief due to the complete absence of any business records, accounts, tax returns, documentation relating to office hire, equipment, employee payments, invoices, or emails, and no independent evidence from any firm that services were provided.
The court noted the complete absence of detail about the alleged agreement with Razi Shah and what services were agreed to be provided for the substantial payment of £125,000.
The court found the accounts of the opening of the bank account by G and Hussain to be "inherently incredible" and involving a bank having no difficulty with an account being opened in one person's name but intended to be run by someone else with poor credit history.
It was concluded that even if the evidence were credible, it would not have afforded grounds for allowing the appeal as it could not reasonably have affected the jury's decision to convict, noting that the Kandi payments were unrelated to other payments forming the majority of monies received by G.
The court held there was no reasonable explanation for the failure to adduce the evidence at trial, describing efforts to contact Hussain as "perfunctory" and noting that despite the importance attached to Hussain's evidence, no statement was obtained before or during any of the three trials. Regarding Khan's evidence, the court found it "inherently unlikely to have had any impact on the mind of the jury" as it provided no support for Kandi Consulting being a genuine business and evidence that G had worked on the case for longer was uncontroversial.
Reproduced with permission of Reed Elsevier (UK) Limited, trading as LexisNexis.
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