Christopher Williams [2019] EWCA Crim 1528

Christopher Brian Williams [2019] EWCA Crim 1528 was a renewed application before Lord Justice Fulford, Mr Justice Sweeney and Mr Justice Dingemans in which the Court refused an extension of time of approximately four years to appeal conviction and held the application to be totally without merit.

Mr Williams had been convicted on 30 July 2014 at Mold Crown Court before His Honour Judge Hughes and a jury of two offences of breach of an enforcement notice, contrary to section 179(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (as substituted). He was fined £2,000 on count one and £1,000 on count two, and ordered to pay £3,000 towards prosecution costs. The single judge had refused leave to appeal.

For a number of years Mr Williams ran a business involving vehicle breaking and scrap storage on land at and adjacent to 7 Saltney Terrace, Saltney Ferry near Chester. He became tenant of the dwelling in July 1992 and obtained ownership of the adjacent land in early 2006 through adverse possession following settlement with Network Rail. By then he was subject to an enforcement notice issued by Flintshire County Council on 8 December 2005. Following representations by a planning consultant, Mr Nichol, the Council withdrew that notice on 9 May 2006 but expressly reserved its power to issue a further notice. On 20 April 2011 the Council issued another enforcement notice (amended on 2 November 2011) requiring Mr Williams by 19 December 2011 to cease using the land for storage and breakage of scrap vehicles, storage of motor vehicle parts, tyres and other associated materials, and by 16 January 2012 to remove a metal clad shed, hard standing and related materials and to reseed the land with grass.

In 2012 Mr Williams was prosecuted for breaching those requirements. Represented by solicitors, he pleaded guilty on a written basis of plea which the prosecution accepted. The basis stated that his plea to the first count was limited to failing to clear tyres and that his plea to the second count was limited to failing to remove the metal clad shed. The basis further stated that “the vehicles on the land whilst not in regular use are not scrap” and that “other items on the land are for legitimate use as a home owner.” On 28 September 2012 in the Crown Court at Mold he was fined £1,000 on count one (with no separate penalty on count two) and ordered to pay costs of £950.

Following a further site visit on 18 July 2013, the Council mounted the instant prosecution. Count one alleged that on 18 July 2013 Mr Williams had not complied with the original enforcement notice by failing to remove from the land all scrap vehicles, vehicle parts, tyres and other equipment or materials by the required date. Count two alleged non-compliance by failing to remove the metal clad shed and hard standing by the required date. Mr Williams was represented by the same solicitors. No application for a stay or plea in bar was made in the Crown Court. The written basis of plea from 2012 was not disclosed as such, though Mr Williams mentioned in evidence including cross-examination that the prosecution had previously said the vehicles were not scrap. According to Mr Williams, the 2012 basis of plea was only formally disclosed by the prosecution prior to sentence in the instant case.

Mr Williams advanced two grounds of appeal. First, it was an abuse of process for the prosecution to accept a written basis of plea, have the court approve it at sentence, and then prosecute for the same offences on the same facts at a later date. Second, the prosecution’s failure to disclose the written basis of plea in the instant proceedings in accordance with their duty under section 7A of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 misled the jury on a material point in issue, namely whether the motor vehicles on his land were scrap.

The respondent contended that the basis had been drafted by Mr Williams’s own counsel, that Mr Williams had the same solicitors in both sets of proceedings, that the instant prosecution was different and included more detail (including the physical condition and lack of road tax of the vehicles found in July 2013), and that the basis of plea could not be taken as an assurance of no future prosecution for like offences or that the vehicles referred to in the previous prosecution could never be characterised as scrap. The respondent submitted that there had been no breach of the duty of disclosure and that even if there had been, there was no possibility the jury would have arrived at different verdicts if the document had been disclosed, so the convictions were safe.

The single judge rejected the application on the basis that the basis of plea concerned the position prior to 2012 whereas the indictment tried in 2014 related to the position as at 18 July 2013. What the prosecution accepted at the earlier date could not affect the propriety of proceedings in relation to the later date. Acceptance of the plea in 2012 did not mean the prosecution accepted the vehicles could never be considered scrap, nor that Mr Williams was entitled to keep them on his land indefinitely. In any event, the count identified a significant number of activities to which the enforcement notice was directed, of which use of the land to store and break scrap vehicles was one, and the prosecution case did not depend on proof that any particular vehicles were scrap. Disclosure of the basis of plea was arguably not required by section 7A of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 as amended, and in any event it was a document within the knowledge of the defence solicitors and Mr Williams himself. Failure to disclose could not affect the safety of the convictions. Had there been an application to stay as abuse of process it would have failed, because the prosecution was not in breach of any agreement reached in the basis of plea, which amounted only to acceptance of the position as at the date of the 2012 offences and did not prevent prosecution in relation to the position in 2013.

The Court of Appeal agreed. There was no arguable merit in the grounds originally advanced and the renewed application was refused. Before the Court, Mr Williams also sought to add a further ground based on Mr Nichol’s 2006 letter, but the Court held that letter provided no further basis for the application to succeed and refused the application to amend.

In short, the Court held that the 2012 basis of plea related only to the facts at that time and could not bind the prosecution or prevent it from alleging on different evidence that vehicles constituted scrap in 2013, and that Mr Williams’s convictions were safe.