Perverting the course of justice
Posted on December 19th, 2019

Lankaweb News

MP Patalie Champika Ranawaka who was arrested by the Colombo Crime Division was further remanded today until December 24th.

MP Ranawaka was arrested in connection with causing a motor accident on a youth at Rajagiriya in 2016 and producing a different person as the driver of the ill-fated vehicle.

Many Defendants do not realize how serious their conduct is before things go wrong. A classic example of this is the offence of Perverting the Course of Justice. Defendants who are otherwise law abiding people get caught out telling stupid lies to the Police and Courts without realizing the dire consequences of getting caught.

Take for example the well known case of Regina -v- Walker from 2015. In this case the Appellant was caught speeding, he had points on his licence already and would probably have been banned if he had accepted the offence. Instead of hiring a good lawyer he enlisted his mother (age 71) to ‘take the points’ for him. He returned the Notice of Intended Prosecution in her name saying that she had been the driver, she willingly signed the notice. The Appellant was 45 and had no previous convictions. He and his mother were caught out and they were both indicted for Perverting the Course of Justice.

His aged mother received a suspended sentence of imprisonment and he received a prison term of six months imprisonment reduced to four months on appeal, a disastrous result for someone who had never before been in trouble with the Courts conducting what they no doubt thought was a harmless lie. The problem is of course that not only does such a conviction mean having to serve a period of imprisonment but a Defendant’s prospect of finding or maintaining any professional employment following such a conviction is marginal, regulators will shy away from allowing an individual to practice in any field such as law, accounting, finance, medicine or teaching.

It therefore goes without saying that the consequences are serious, therefore if a person finds themselves accused of such an offence a specialist lawyer should be sought. In this article I will look at the law in respect of Perverting the Course of Justice and potential defence and sentences upon conviction.

Fiona Onasanya: Labour expels MP found guilty of perverting the course of justice over speeding charge

Labour has expelled an MP found guilty of repeatedly lying to police about a driving offence.

The party confirmed it has withdrawn membership from Fiona Onasanya, the Peterborough MP, and called on her to step down.

Labour chairman Ian Lavery said it would wait to see what sentence Onasanya receives before deciding how to proceed.

The MP was found guilty of perverting the course of justice after attempting to avoid a speeding charge and is due to be sentenced later this month.

Under parliamentary rules, she will automatically lose her seat if she receives a prison sentence of a year or more. 

If she is given a shorter custodial term, her constituents would be asked if they want her to stand aside. If more than 10 per cent said yes then a by-election would be held.

Mr Lavery said Labour would support any move to force Onasanya to stand aside. 

He told the Peterborough Telegraph: You voted for a Labour Party person. Unfortunately the people of Peterborough were failed. We want a Labour Party MP here who will do the people of Peterborough a great service.”

Confirming her expulsion, he said: Fiona isn’t a member of the Labour Party – she isn’t a Labour MP.”

And calling on her to step down as an MP, he said: We would be raring to go for a by-election. We’re up for it.

The people in Peterborough want a Labour MP – they voted for a Labour MP the last time and I’m absolutely confident from what we have to offer that we would win a by-election in the very near future if one was to be held.”

Onasanya won the marginal seat from the Conservatives at the 2017 election, taking over from Stewart Jackson, who had held it for 12 years.

Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce each jailed for eight months

Former Lib Dem energy secretary and ex-wife sentenced for perverting course of justice

Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce arrive at Southwark Crown court
 Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce arrive at Southwark crown court, where they were sentenced for perverting the course of justice. Photograph: Reuters/Getty

Chris Huhne and his ex-wife, Vicky Pryce, have each been jailed for eight months for perverting the course of justice over an arrangement 10 years ago in which Pryce took speeding points for the former Liberal Democrat MP.

Huhne, 58, resigned his Commons seat last month after pleading guilty to the offence immediately before the start of a scheduled joint trial with Pryce. His ex-wife, a 60-year-old economist, was found guilty last week at the end of a second trial in which jurors rejected her defence that Huhne had coerced her into taking the points.

Sentencing them at Southwark crown court on Monday afternoon, the judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, said: “To the extent that anything good has come out of this whole process, it is that now, finally, you have both been brought to justice for your joint offence. Any element of tragedy is entirely your own fault.”Advertisement

In 2003, the judge said, the pair had a long marriage, five children and “stellar” careers. But they also had a problem: Huhne’s looming six-month driving ban for speeding.

“You have fallen from a great height,” he told Huhne, adding that he had reached that height only by lying about the points.

Although he said Huhne was “somewhat – but not greatly, in my view – more culpable” than his ex-wife, the judge said Pryce had shown an “implacable” desire for revenge following the end of her marriage, adding that her not guilty plea had revealed a “controlling, manipulative and devious side to your character”.

She had, he went on, “sought to manipulate and control the press” so as to achieve her “dual objective” of bringing down Huhne and not implicating herself.

Huhne, wearing a dark suit and tie, remained motionless as he became the first former cabinet minister since Jonathan Aitken to be sent to prison.

Pryce, who wore a black jacket over a silver-grey top, also showed no emotion as she was sent to prison in front of a packed courtroom, which included Huhne’s father and his partner, Carina Trimingham.

Neither gave any visible reaction to the sentences, or looked at each other. As the judge ordered they be taken to begin their setences Huhne went first. His former wife waited a few seconds for him to disappear through the door, and with a barely perceptible nod to her legal team and the judge, followed him out.

Huhne and Pryce will probably serve only two months of their eight month sentences in prison. The judge said they would be released on licence halfway through their sentence but would also be eligible for earlier release under supervision. This refers to the home detention curfew scheme under which prisoners are released after serving a quarter of their sentence – in this case two months. Those released under the scheme have to abide by a minimum nine-hour curfew which is enforced by an electronic tag usually fastened on the ankle.

The jail terms bring to a close a murky saga that has not only ruined Huhne’s meteoric political career – elected to parliament in 2005, he quickly progressed to become energy secretary in the coalition – and badly damaged Pryce’s impressive professional reputation as a leading economist, but has also torn apart their family.

The saga began on 12 March 2003 when Huhne, then an MEP, was clocked speeding on his way home to south London from Stansted airport. To save him from a driving ban owing to an accumulation of points on his licence, Pryce said she had been driving, her trial heard.

The matter lay quiet for seven years. But in June 2010 Huhne told his family he was leaving Pryce as a newspaper had learned of his long-term affair with his PR adviser, Carina Trimingham, 46.

Pryce was furious and began talking to newspaper journalists, notably the Sunday Times’s political editor, Isabel Oakeshott, about the arrangement over the driving points. Revenge, however, was not forthcoming: instead of seeing her husband jailed, Pryce stood next to him in the dock to hear her own sentence.

The events also exacted a terrible toll on the family. During a pre-trial hearing during which Huhne attempted unsuccessfully to have the charge against him dismissed, the court was told about text message exchanges between Huhne and his youngest son, Peter, in which the then 18-year-old abused his father and told him they had no relationship.

There was wider political fallout from the case after emails between Pryce and Oakeshott, revealed to the jury, suggested several people within the Liberal Democrats, including Vince Cable and Nick Clegg’s wife, Miriam González Durántez, had known about the points swap before it was reported in the press in May 2011. They have denied this.

Perverting the course of justice

Perverting the course of justice is an offence committed when a person prevents justice from being served on him/herself or on another party. In England and Wales it is a common law offence, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Statutory versions of the offence exist in AustraliaCanadaHong KongIreland, and New Zealand. The Scottish equivalent is defeating the ends of justice,[1] while the South African counterpart is defeating or obstructing the course of justice.[2]

Doing an act tending and intending to pervert the course of public justice[3] is an offence under the common law of England and Wales.

Perverting the course of justice can be any of three acts:

Also criminal are:

  1. conspiring with another to pervert the course of justice, and
  2. intending to pervert the course of justice

This offence, and the subject matter of the related forms of criminal conspiracy, have been referred to as:

  • Perverting the course of justice
  • Interfering with the administration of justice
  • Obstructing the administration of justice
  • Obstructing the course of justice
  • Defeating the due course of justice
  • Defeating the ends of justice
  • Effecting a public mischief[4]

This proliferation of alternative names is somewhat confusing”.[5]

This offence is also sometimes referred to as attempting to pervert the course of justice”. This is potentially misleading. An attempt to pervert the course of justice is a substantive common law offence and not an inchoate offence. It is not a form of the offence of attempt, and it would be erroneous to charge it as being contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981.[6]

This offence is triable only on indictment.[7]

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