Mohammed Hadi [2019] EWCA Crim 1910

Mohammed Hadi [2019] EWCA Crim 1910 concerned an appeal by Mr Mohammed Hadi against a sentence of six years’ imprisonment imposed by His Honour Judge Tindal in the Crown Court at Worcester on 11 February 2019 for conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation, to run consecutively to an eight-year term imposed at Leeds Crown Court on 4 September 2018, giving a total term of 14 years. The Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Males, Mrs Justice Cutts and His Honour Judge Dean QC) dismissed the appeal.

Mr Hadi had pleaded guilty on 1 October 2018 to a single count of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation. He was aged 35 and had two previous convictions. In 2007 he had been sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for conspiracy to defraud. In September 2018 he was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment at Leeds Crown Court for conspiracy to defraud. The sentence under appeal was ordered to run consecutively to that term.

The Worcester case involved a courier fraud conspiracy operating between late April and 1 June 2016 across a wide geographical area. Conspirators telephoned elderly victims claiming to be police officers investigating crimes at the victim’s bank and seeking assistance in the investigation. A mixture of charm, pressure and threat was used to induce cooperation. When victims sought assurance, they were asked to hang up and dial 999 or 101, but the conspirators kept the line open so that a confederate answered, verifying the bogus story. Victims were then asked to withdraw cash and hand it to couriers or leave it at a prearranged place, or to hand over bank cards with PIN numbers. Alternatively, victims were asked to make cash deposits or transfers to nominated accounts, sometimes being provided with a cover story to defeat bank employees’ queries. Couriers travelled to victims’ locations, sometimes accompanied by another conspirator. A coordinator directed the operation using multiple pay-as-you-go mobile telephones.

The conspirators targeted elderly people with bank accounts of sufficient balance, often working through lists of telephone numbers with surnames beginning with the same or adjacent letters. One victim, Mrs Rose, aged 81, was visited on four consecutive days, with her bank cards used on three occasions, losing more than £25,000. She was traumatised, having to move out of her home temporarily. Other elderly victims experienced similar pressure, including threats of arrest and indications they were being watched. The harm extended far beyond financial loss, encompassing humiliation and a significant loss of confidence.

The scale of the fraud was described by His Honour Judge Tindal as vast. Some 1,800 different landline numbers were called in 2,200 calls. The police took statements only from those who had spoken to the conspirators’ phones for more than a certain length of time. The total cash handed over or successfully transferred was approximately £200,000, although some transactions failed when bank employees dissuaded victims from making withdrawals. Despite the short timeframe, the criminal activity was intensive, constituting a full-time operation for Mr Hadi and others.

The prosecution case was that a man named Rejwanal Islam and Mr Hadi were the key players, with Islam being slightly the more significant. Mr Hadi provided the means to commit the fraud, including contacts for laundering stolen money, notably a co-accused named Kevin Thomas. Mr Hadi supplied bank accounts to Islam into which funds could be transferred, the accounts often being used only once to avoid detection. There was a clear pattern of contact between the coordinator telephone (used by Islam) and Mr Hadi before calls were made to victims, indicating consultation about whether to send couriers into the field or to use account transfers. There was also triangulation in calls between Islam, couriers and Mr Hadi. On 1 June 2018 in the early hours Mr Hadi was captured on CCTV buying top-ups in Northolt for two of the phones used to contact victims.

His Honour Judge Tindal sentenced Mr Islam and Mr Hadi in relation to the Worcester conspiracy. The judge concluded that each was central to the fraud and fell squarely into category 1A of the Sentencing Council’s Fraud Guidelines, playing leading sophisticated roles and involving others through their influence. Islam was treated as the coordinator and manager. His previous conviction for involvement in courier fraud was a significant aggravating feature. The judge took a starting point of seven years for category 1A, adjusted downward from the guideline starting point of eight years for a fraud of £1 million to reflect the lesser sums here involved, and gave Islam 15 per cent credit for his plea, bearing in mind his personal mitigation. Islam was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment.

As to Mr Hadi, the judge found he was not as central as Islam in running the conspiracy but was heavily involved in planning it and introducing accounting methods. He had a very similar previous conviction for a similar operation in Leeds in 2015 for which he was then serving a long prison sentence. This was a critical aggravating feature, not least because the Worcester fraud was committed whilst he was under investigation for the Leeds matters. For those reasons a consecutive sentence would be imposed, but an adjustment for totality would be made. The sentence imposed would not be as long as the Leeds term. Bearing in mind Mr Hadi was not as central as Islam but weighing that against other matters including his previous conviction and noting that he had pleaded guilty after the preliminary hearing but before Islam, creating a domino effect among other defendants, the appropriate credit was 20 per cent. He was therefore sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. The judge stated that the sentence was the same as Islam’s because Mr Hadi’s previous conviction was so much more serious an aggravating feature, but this was weighed against the fact that his role was slightly less central than Islam’s.

The principal ground of appeal related to the totality of the sentences imposed first in Leeds and then in Worcester. Mr Hadi had applied for leave to appeal the Leeds sentence of eight years imposed by His Honour Judge Jameson QC on 4 September 2018, but that application was refused by the single judge in December 2018 and not renewed. The Leeds matter also concerned courier fraud. Mr Hadi had been convicted after trial. His Honour Judge Jameson described the fraud as sophisticated and heartless, poisoning the final years of many victims. Almost £250,000 was stolen. Mr Hadi was a leading light in the conspiracy, involved in organising other defendants and sometimes in direct contact with victims. He had been arrested and interviewed under caution in August 2015, seemingly did not participate further in the Leeds conspiracy after that date, but the Worcester conspiracy was up and running by April 2016 and operated for some weeks thereafter. Whether he was on bail or released under investigation was immaterial; the Worcester conspiracy took place at a time when he knew he was being investigated for a very serious and similar fraud of which he was subsequently convicted.

The written grounds of appeal complained that His Honour Judge Tindal’s calibration of the sentences of Islam and Mr Hadi was faulty. The Court of Appeal held that the learned judge’s analysis of their respective roles, their criminality, their past offending and the stage at which they each pleaded guilty was detailed and accurate. The other ground of appeal concerned totality. It was said that the 14 years’ imprisonment represented by the consecutive sentence of six years was excessive and disproportionate to Mr Hadi’s overall criminality.

The Court of Appeal emphasised that His Honour Judge Jameson and His Honour Judge Tindal had remarked when sentencing that the frauds Mr Hadi had been involved in at a leading level were targeted on the old and the vulnerable, requiring persistence, determination and cunning in abundance, resulting in very significant financial loss and great distress to many victims. His Honour Judge Jameson was aware that Mr Hadi was likely to plead guilty to the Worcester matter when he dealt with him on 4 September 2018, but at that stage the question of totality did not arise. His Honour Judge Tindal was fully aware of the sentence imposed by His Honour Judge Jameson. He was bound to impose a consecutive sentence for the Worcester fraud, was not criticised for doing so, and was bound to consider the principle of totality. He did so and stated as much in his sentencing remarks. Although not explicit, it appeared that for the standalone Worcester matter, albeit aggravated by the Leeds case and allowing for credit for the guilty plea, His Honour Judge Tindal had in mind a sentence of eight years or more, and reduced the sentence to six years in part at least to reflect the principle of totality.

Whilst the Court of Appeal accepted that His Honour Judge Tindal might have been more clear as regards the extent to which he adjusted the sentence for totality, the question on appeal was whether the consecutive sentence rendered the overall term of 14 years manifestly excessive. The court outlined the nature of Mr Hadi’s offending and noted that both sentencing judges had made observations about the wickedness of the fraud and the prominent role of the appellant. Although a total of 14 years’ imprisonment represented a stiff overall sentence, the court did not consider that the sentence imposed by His Honour Judge Tindal rendered the total sentence Mr Hadi would serve to be manifestly excessive. In short, the appeal was dismissed, the total sentence of 14 years for two sophisticated courier fraud conspiracies targeting elderly victims being held not to be manifestly excessive given Mr Hadi’s leading roles and the commission of the second offence while under investigation for the first.