Earlier this week the Court of Appeal exercised its power to increase sentences imposed by the Crown Court, finding that a sentence of 21 months imposed for conspiracy to defraud was unduly lenient. The Court of Appeal then increased it to three and a half years.
The case concerned a Yorkshire man, Bernard Collins, who had run a building and gardening business with his son, Barney Collins. According to the Attorney General's Office, the two men had developed a practice of cold calling potential customers and pressuring them to have work done. The work was then generally carried out poorly, and the customer overcharged.
The two were taken to court after they were found to have tricked two elderly clients into spending large sums of money on unnecessary or non-existent work.
In July of this year Collins pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and money laundering at Teesside Crown Court and was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment. His son pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to defraud, and was sentenced to ten months in prison.
Both sentences were referred to the Attorney General’s Office by the North Yorkshire Trading Standards department, and then on to the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal has a great deal of discretion in these cases. It may refuse to hear the case at all or, if it does hear the case, it may either decide to leave things as they are or increase the sentence.
In this case the Court of Appeal did both - increasing Bernard Collins' sentence to three and a half years and refusing to overturn the sentence imposed on Barney Collins.
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If your or one of your loved ones’ prison sentence is the subject of an appeal and you require specialist legal advice please contact our solicitors Jeffrey Lewis or Siobhain Egan on 020 7387 2032 or complete our online enquiry form here.
This blog post is intended as a news item only - no connection between Lewis Nedas and the parties concerned is intended or implied.
