Date: 05 July 2001
The applicant, Steven Phillips, is a British national, who was convicted on 27 June 1996, at Newport Crown Court, of being involved in the importation in November 1995 of a large quantity of cannabis resin, contrary to section 170(2) of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979. On 12 July 1996 he was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment. He had previous convictions, but none concerning a drugs-related offense. At the confiscation hearing before the Crown Court, the judge applied section 4(3) of the 1994 Act, which empowers a court to assume that all property held by a person convicted of a drug-trafficking offense within the preceding six years represented the proceeds of drug trafficking. On this basis, the applicant was assessed to have received, as the proceeds of drug trafficking, 91,400 pounds sterling (GBP) and a confiscation order was made for this amount. If the applicant failed to pay, he was to serve an extra two years’ imprisonment, consecutive to the nine-year term. The applicant complained that the statutory assumption under the 1994 Act violated his right to be presumed innocent, guaranteed under Article 6 § 2. He also complained that the confiscation order was in breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.
Citation: Phillips v the United Kingdom (App no 41087/98) ECHR 5 July 2001
(from the official press-release prepared by the Registry Office of the European Court of Human Rights)
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