Court of Appeal upholds permanent stay of trial: situation ‘akin’ to autrefois convict | Directs acquittal
Jessie Smith, instructed by Ellie Bird of Hodge Jones & Allen, appeared on behalf of JW at trial and as Respondent before the Court of Appeal in a Crown appeal against a terminating ruling.
On 1 September 2026 Lady Justice Yip, Mrs Justice Farbey and Mrs Justice Thornton dismissed the prosecution appeal and directed the acquittal of the defendant for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs and participating in the activities of an organised crime group.
JW is a vulnerable woman with severe autism. She had been arrested following weeks of covert surveillance by police. JW was charged with possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply and pleaded guilty to that offence. The amount of drugs specified by the Crown at that time was 5kg. Although the sentencing guidelines produced a starting point of 10 years' imprisonment, the sentencing judge imposed a 4 year penalty by reason of her acute disability and the fact that she was the primary carer for two children under 5. The sentencing judge had also found that JW had been exploited by others. The judge expressed concern that he did not have all of the evidence of JW's involvement in the criminal network and directed the Investigating Officer to serve all outstanding evidence. It later became clear that police did not serve all evidence as directed.
Eight months later - and after JW’s release on licence, the Crown charged her with conspiracy to supply Class A drugs and participating in an organised crime group, alongside 17 other co-defendants. The Crown served over 100,000 pages of new evidence and the particulars of the offence concerned hundreds of kilograms of drugs.
Following careful analysis of the evidence, the defence established the conspiracy concerned substantially the same conduct as the earlier proceedings. Moreover, the defence were able to identify that police had withheld material from the earlier sentencing court despite clear direction from the judge that they furnish that information. By the conclusion of her sentencing hearing, the Crown had in their hands all of the material that underpinned the later conspiracy charge against her. It was oppressive to proceed a second time and impaired her defence.
JW brought an application to stay proceedings on the basis that it was a situation ‘akin’ to autrefois convict. In Connelly v DPP [1964] AC 1254 the House of Lords identified two related principles: First, no person should be punished twice for an offence arising out of the same, or substantially the same, set of facts. Second, there should be no sequential trials for offences on an ascending scale of gravity. Should the Crown traverse these principles a prosecution will be stayed, save in ‘special or exceptional circumstances'.
Following two days of legal argument at Wood Green Crown Court, HHJ Aaronberg KC imposed a permanent stay. It was this stay that was the subject of the failed prosecution appeal.
