Syam Hussain & Another [2019] EWCA Crim 1525

Hussain and Talukdar were convicted of entering or becoming concerned in a money-laundering arrangement; both were sentenced to 8 months’ imprisonment.

A conspiracy took place where one of the conspirators rang a victim and by pretending to be a police officer would obtain either cash or bank cards and PINs by the use of a courier.

Hussain was convicted of money laundering relating to one fraudulent transaction. The victim made payments to nominated accounts and Hussain was linked to one of them; the fraud value in his case was £9,100. Talukdar was also convicted of involvement in one fraudulent transaction as he agreed to allow his account to be used to receive £7,340.

Held: the cases of both applicants were properly treated as falling into culpability category B and harm category 6. The judge took the top of the range as his starting point and took the view a deterrent sentence was essential. The applicants had no or very little previous history of offending, and both were university students. The applicable bracket included community orders, and it was incumbent on the judge to obtain a PSR, a community order was, at the very least, a possibility requiring consideration.

The sentences were manifestly excessive, reflecting the time spent in custody an appropriate penalty was a community order with 50 hours of unpaid work.