Attorney General's Reference No 6 of 2004

LORD JUSTICE LATHAM: This is an application by Her Majesty's Attorney General for leave to refer to this court sentences which were imposed upon the offender after trial at the Wood Green Crown Court when on 22nd November 2003 he was sentenced to a total of 10 years' imprisonment for offences relating to the trafficking in young girls. As Mr Horwell on behalf of the Attorney General has indicated, this is the first occasion upon which this court has had to consider a story of human trafficking of this nature and accordingly we give leave for the sentences to be referred.

Human trafficking is a problem which confronts not only this country but many other countries in the world. It is an activity which is degrading and produces untold misery to girls all over the world. As Mr Horwell has said, some parts of the story in this case have echoes of the days of slavery with girls being sold by one procurer to another. Sadly the story which is disclosed by this case is now only too familiar from the newspaper reports which have put a spotlight on this trade in the last few years. Accordingly, it is clearly important that courts which deal with these offences have well in mind the need for a message to be sent that this type of activity is despicable, cannot be tolerated by a civilised society and that those involved in it will be sentenced to lengthy sentences of imprisonment.

With that introduction we turn to the story in this case.

The offender is an Albanian by birth, although now a British citizen, is 26 years of age and effectively of previous good character. The story involves seven young girls all of whom were brought here at the hands, in part at least, of the offender in breach of our immigration laws. As a result he faced seven counts of assisting unlawful immigration contrary to section 25 of the Immigration Act 1971. He did not deny his involvement in those offences. He pleaded guilty to them and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in respect of each of them to be served concurrently.

The trial, which was presided over by the sentencing judge, related to his pleas of not guilty to the offences which the prosecution claimed followed from the girls having been brought into this country. As far as three of those girls were concerned, after coming into this country they worked as prostitutes, each having given evidence that in one way or another they were corrupted by the offender or coerced by the offender so as to prostitute themselves. In relation to those offences, which were of living off immoral earnings, the offender was sentenced in relation to two of the girls to 12 months' imprisonment and to one of the girls to three years' imprisonment. We will return to the reason for the distinction later.

So far as one of those girls was concerned, her story made it clear that she had been brought to this country on false promises and was originally held here against her will. In addition to her account, there was an account from two sisters which told a similar tale of being brought here by promises of lawful employment which when they arrived here it became apparent were wholly untrue; they were being brought here to become prostitutes and were held against their will in order to persuade them to become prostitutes. In relation to those three girls the offender was charged with kidnapping and received sentences of 10 years' imprisonment which were essentially the substantive sentences upon which the judge based the overall sentence.

One of those three girls gave a graphic account of having been forced to submit to the sexual advances of a colleague of the offender and in relation to that he was charged with incitement to rape and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment. The remaining two girls were, fortunately for them, found on the offender's premises when the police raided them ultimately in October 2002, before the offender had in fact done any more than assist to bring them into this country and was providing them with accommodation in his flat.

That then is a general description of the nature of the offences which this offender faced as charges in the trial and of which he was found guilty.

The evidence which the jury heard and upon which they convicted the offender started with the investigation which was triggered by a girl Claudia E, whom we shall refer to as Claudia, being found in the street on 29th October 2002 in Green Lanes, London. She waved down a passing police car and complained that she had been raped. It was her story which lifted the lid on the offender's activities. It transpired that she, who was then 24 years of age, and her sister Arabella, aged 17, were approached by a man in Romania where they lived and were persuaded to come to this country being promised work in an English bar. They were taken to Prague where they met the offender who took them to Italy from where they were driven in a car to England by two Italian men. Eventually they arrived at the offender's home at 3c Middleton Road in London where they were assaulted by the offender and informed that they would be separated. He told Arabella that she would now have to work as a prostitute. She was threatened that water and food would be withheld until she complied. They were offered, during the time that they were together, to various men, one of whom they knew by the name of Plummi. The sisters were then separated. Arabella was taken to premises where she learnt that she had been sold to Plummi. She was told that she would have to have sexual intercourse and oral sex with men. She did not submit and was then locked into a room. Three men then came and undressed and demanded sexual intercourse and oral sex. She again refused. She was threatened. She responded by saying that she would throw herself out of the window rather than submit. Plummi who was there, confronted by her intransigence, telephoned the offender. He arrived together with the girl called Alexandra L, to whom we will refer shortly, who acted as interpreter because he was unable to speak Romanian. Through her he threatened to beat Arabella and leave her for dead unless she did whatever Plummi demanded of her. The offender and Alexandra L then left. Arabella then ultimately was forced to submit to sexual intercourse by Plummi. She was terrified.

Claudia had meanwhile been taken to another address where she was kept prisoner. She was told that she would have to have sex with clients the next day. It was fortunate that she was able to escape from that address into the street and, as we have indicated, wave down a passing police car before she was subjected to any sexual indignities.

The information that she had enabled the police to identify the offender's address at 3c Middleton Road. They went straight to that address where they found the offender. The offender, it is right to say, at that stage indicated to the police that he would be able to get Arabella released and he telephoned Plummi. Arabella was indeed, as a result of that telephone call, released, but simply into the street where she was ultimately found by the police in a state of distress.

The offender's address was searched and the paraphernalia of prostitution was found. Hundreds of condoms, lubricants and guides to massage parlours were discovered and it was plain that the premises had been used to house prostitutes before they went to brothels in London, Reading, Luton and elsewhere. Also in the premises were the two girls Andrea S and Alina B who were in possession of false Italian passports. They were illegal immigrants from Romania and were cousins. They had originally left Romania to work as waitresses in Italy. They were, as they described it, bought by a man in Italy and they were driven to the UK where they were met by the offender and Alexandra L and were taken to the offender's address. It was apparent that the girl Alina B had in fact been in this country previously and had been forced into prostitution but had agreed to go to Italy to collect her cousin and to bring her back to this country for the same purpose, which was the reason that they were together in the offender's address at that time.

Also at that address was the girl Alexandra L. She left Moldovia in July 2000, aged 16, and entered this country with the assistance of the offender and other people. She had been taken first to Romania and then met up with another of the girls involved in this case, Natasha B. They met the offender in Yugoslavia and were brought to this country. When they were here the offender told them that he had had to spend a substantial amount of money to bring them to this country and they would have to repay him by working as prostitutes. For at least two years Alexandra L did so, working as a prostitute in London, Reading, Luton and Bedford. Alexandra L in fact married the offender on 7th March 2001. She told the police and the court that she felt coerced both into prostitution and into the marriage, but it is right to say that she continued to live with the offender right through the period from the time she came to this country to the time that the police went to the offender's home on 29th October 2002 and indeed played the part that we have described in the story told by Arabella. She said that the offender had lived off her earnings in the sense that they shared expenses from pooled finances.

The girl she came over to this country with, Natasha B, was also just 16 years of age. She said that after she was brought to this country she was sold by the offender for £7,000 to a pimp in Brighton. She was then told that she would have to repay that sum by having to work as a prostitute. She stayed in Brighton for a time but then she came back to London and thereafter worked as a prostitute for the offender. He subjected her to assaults and other forms of mistreatment and throughout kept a close watch on her. She received between £600 and £1,000 per day, all of which was given to the offender or those who worked for him. She was simply provided with pocket money. She subsequently managed to escape from the offender, was traced by the police and gave the account which we have just described.

Finally, so far as the girls themselves are concerned, was the girl Alla O. She was a Moldovian national who grew up with Alexandra L. She heard of what was happening to Alexandra L and came to this country to be with her. The offender helped her to obtain entry. She was at first turned back at Dover when she was attempting to use a false Czech passport, but that did not deter either the offender or her; a false Belgian passport was then procured and she managed to enter this country through the channel tunnel later. She was 20 years of age. On her arrival, which was in July 2002, the offender told her that she would have to reimburse him for the £7,000 it had cost to bring her to England and he made her work for him as a prostitute for some five months before the arrests were made. Her account was that she lived with Alexandra L and the offender at the offender's home and they all shared household expenses.

The investigation by the police was able to establish that a sum of £204,396 could be traced through bank deposits which the offender controlled in the three years or so from 1999 to October 2002 and it is plain from the accounts that were given by the girls, and from the offender himself, that he lived extravagantly. He travelled extensively, he wore designer clothes and at the time of his arrest he was in possession of a Ferrari and a BMW.

The evidence therefore established that the offender occupied a principal position in a well-organised and international enterprise concerned in the illegal trafficking of woman into the United Kingdom and the pattern which was disclosed by these girls is a pattern recognisable in accounts given by others in the material which has been exposed, as we have indicated, in the press.

There is no doubt that the judge was faced with a difficult sentencing exercise in the sense that there was no guidance from this court or from the sentencing panel dealing with human trafficking and in those circumstances the judge was, we accept, faced with a relatively clean piece of paper. However, sufficient guidance can be gleaned from the authorities to which we have been referred by counsel on behalf of the Attorney General, to provide a secure basis for placing these offences in their appropriate sentencing brackets.

So far as assisting the unlawful immigration into this country is concerned, Lord Bingham, Lord Chief Justice, in Van Binh Le and Stark [1993] 1 Cr.App.R (S) 422 gave guidance to the effect that the appropriate sentencing bracket would be between two-and-a-half and five years' imprisonment, depending upon the circumstances of the case. The Lord Chief Justice made it clear that in cases where there was a commercial element the appropriate figure would be one of five years' imprisonment and that was in the context of a maximum of seven years' imprisonment which was the regime in place at the time. In the case of this offender the maximum sentence available to the court was one of 10 years' imprisonment and there is no doubt at all that his offending in this regard falls into the category of commercial exploitation of illegal entrants where a sentence of five years is wholly appropriate despite his pleas of guilty, bearing in mind the number of offences.

The next category of offence is the offence of living on immoral earnings contrary to section 30 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. In such cases the authorities establish that where there has been no coercion or corruption a sentence of two years may be appropriate. This court said that as long ago as 1979 in Farrugia (1979) 69 Cr.App.R 108 where it was said that five years might be appropriate where there was coercion or corruption but not otherwise. In the case of Powell [2001] 1 Cr.App.R (S) 261, this court considered that where there was coercion the appropriate figure was indeed five years' imprisonment. In the present case, as far as this offender is concerned, the evidence establishes, it seems to us, that Natasha B was certainly subject to coercion and corruption and that in the case of the charges in relation to her which were firstly procuring a girl under the age of 21 to have unlawful sexual intercourse, and count 8, living on prostitution, that fact had to be taken into account by the sentencing judge. So far as procuring was concerned, the maximum was two years' imprisonment. The judge sentenced him to 18 months' imprisonment and that was an appropriate sentence for that offence. However, as far as living on immoral earnings was concerned, it appears to us that the facts justified a sentence of five years' imprisonment.

So far as Alexandra L and Alla O were concerned, it may be said that their position was different. They clearly lived with the offender for a significant period of time and that was the basis of the charge of living on immoral earnings. There was therefore some justification in treating their cases differently. But in the evidence of both girls there was sufficient to justify the conclusion that there was an element of coercion and corruption and in the overall context of the story an appropriate sentence for them would have been one of three years' imprisonment.

We then turn to the offence of kidnapping. It is plain that where there is serious kidnapping of this sort a sentence in excess of eight years' imprisonment can be expected. That was clearly spelt out by Lord Lane in Spence and Thomas (1983) 5 Cr.App.R (S) 413. In those circumstances, bearing in mind the evidence of Natasha, Claudia and Arabella, it is plain that the sentence must reflect the fact that each of them was not only tricked into coming here but also held here against their will and indeed so far as Natasha was concerned sold under circumstances that we have described. It follows that a sentence of 10 years' imprisonment was not inappropriate and we shall have to return to that question when considering the way in which the overall sentences should be constructed.

The next and final offence as to which there is guidance is the offence of incitement to rape which was the offence which the offender faced in relation to Arabella. The case of Millberry [2003] 2 Cr.App.R (S) 31 does not directly deal with incitement to rape, but clearly incitement to rape in the circumstances of this case must carry with it a sentence of at least eight years' imprisonment, bearing in mind the nature of the account given by Arabella. Indeed, if it was taken by itself that offence would have merited a substantially greater sentence of imprisonment.

Finally, we are properly reminded that in the case of Millberry it was said that for campaigns of rape sentences of 15 years' imprisonment and upwards can be expected; and the story that we have related carries with it the characteristics of a campaign of rape, bearing in mind the consequences to these young girls brought over here unwillingly so far as prostitution is concerned.

It follows that we do not consider that the sentences imposed by the judge adequately reflected the guidance given to which we have referred in respect of each of the individual counts in the indictment, nor do we consider that 10 years' imprisonment in total in any way adequately reflects the criminality in this case or the need for a substantial and deterrent sentence. However, clearly some allowance has to be made in order to adjust the sentences by making them concurrent to recognise what would otherwise be a total sentence of too great a length, and to take into account the element of double jeopardy.

We consider the right approach to sentencing in this case is as follows. In relation to Alexandra, that is counts 1 and 4, the offender should receive a sentence of five years' imprisonment on count 1 and three years' imprisonment on count 4. Those sentences are to be served consecutively in order to reflect the fact that there are two separate sets of criminal activities involved in what the offender did.

So far as Natasha is concerned, on count 5, relating to illegal entry, the sentence is five years' imprisonment; on count 6, the offence of kidnapping, 10 years imprisonment; on count 7 for procuring her for sexual intercourse, that will remain at 18 months' imprisonment and for living on immoral earnings, five years' imprisonment. Counts 5 and 6 will be served consecutively; counts 7 and 8 will be served concurrently but consecutively to counts 5 and 6, making a total of 20 years' imprisonment.

So far as Alla is concerned, in relation to the illegal entry count the sentence will be five years' imprisonment and on count 14, immoral earnings, three years' imprisonment to be served concurrently, as in the case of Alexandra, making a total of 8 years' imprisonment.

So far as Claudia is concerned, count 16, the offence of kidnapping, the proper sentence is one of 10 years' imprisonment as imposed by the judge, but as far as count 22 is concerned, which is assisting illegal entry, the sentence should be five years' imprisonment. Those sentences are to be served consecutively making a total of 15 years' imprisonment.

So far as Arabella is concerned, count 18, incitement to rape, we consider that that should be restricted to the sentence imposed by the judge, that is one of 8 years' imprisonment, and the sentence on count 19 for kidnapping should likewise be restricted to the sentence imposed by the judge of 10 years' imprisonment. However, so far as count 23 is concerned of assisting illegal entry, that will be increased to five years' imprisonment. We restrict the sentences in relation to counts 18 and 19 because in our judgment all three counts should be served consecutively, making a total of 23 years' imprisonment.

So far as Andrea L and Alina O are concerned, that is the remaining counts 24 and 25, in respect of each of those counts of assisting illegal entry there will be sentences of five years' imprisonment, as in the case of all the others.

The overall sentence we therefore impose is one of 23 years' imprisonment.