Guilty pleas vacated - Evidence of human trafficking accepted

In June 2017, N, a Vietnamese citizen, pleaded guilty to offences of producing cannabis and unauthorised use of electricity. The Crown’s case was that N had been 'responsible for industrial scale production, operating from a factory’. 

N was represented by a lawyer at the police station. He answered ‘No comment’ in interview to the majority of questions he was asked. N had legal representation when he pleaded guilty at court to both offences, the next day. 

Six months later, and with newly instructed counsel and solicitors, N’s legal team successfully applied to vacate both N’s guilty pleas on the ground that there was prima facie evidence that N had been the victim of human trafficking. N’s convictions were duly set aside.  

The Crown Prosecution Service requested that the Crown Court list the case, again, for trial. The Court did so. N’s counsel settled submissions that there were no remaining issues to litigate before a jury and that the Crown Prosecution Service had failed to apply its own guidance. N’s solicitor prepared a detailed chronology of all proceedings to date, including missed opportunities by investigating and arresting police to pursue reasonable lines of inquiry that would have shown, at the earliest, that N was a victim of human trafficking. 

Today, at the PTPH, the Crown Prosecution Service elected to discontinue the listed trial proceedings against N. 

From first instruction in the Crown Court, N’s counsel and solicitors drove N’s case down the route of the National Referral Mechanism and elicited 'reasonable grounds’ and ‘conclusive grounds’ decisions that founded N’s application to vacate his guilty pleas. N’s legal representatives commissioned an expert report on indicators and classic hallmarks of human trafficking and how those were indicated and apparent per the case served against N. 

N was represented by Abigail Bright and Hayley Douglas, instructed by Miriam Thompson, Faradays Solicitors