R v QX

On 24 March 2021, in the Crown Court at Leicester, the appellant was convicted of three counts of breaking the requirements of a Temporary Exclusion Order, contrary to section 10(3) of the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015. On the same day he was sentenced to a suspended sentence order. Further consequential financial orders were also made. He was ordered to pay a surcharge in the sum of £122 and prosecution costs in the sum of £1,000. We are told by Miss Oborne, who has appeared on behalf of the appellant this morning, that those sums have been paid.

The appellant now appeals against conviction, pursuant to Schedule 4 to the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015.

The statutory scheme giving rise to that right of appeal in Schedule 4 provides by paragraph 1 that an individual such as the appellant who has been convicted of an offence under section 10(3) may appeal against that conviction if the Temporary Exclusion Order is quashed and he could not have been convicted had the quashing occurred before the proceedings for the offence were brought.

By paragraph 2, such an appeal should be brought to the Court of Appeal, which is what has happened.

By paragraph 4(1), the Act provides:

The statutory preconditions, therefore, for that obligation falling upon the court are: first, that there was a qualifying conviction – that, as we have already recorded, is made out; and second, that the Temporary Exclusion Order, which was the basis of that conviction, has been quashed – that, also, is made out.

On 16 June 2025, after very lengthy civil proceedings, which found their way ultimately to the Supreme Court, the Temporary Exclusion Order was quashed by consent. The proceedings in the Administrative Court which gave rise to that event were between the claimant and the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The Secretary of State for the Home Department agreed that the relevant order should be quashed ab initio, and one of the recitals to the order says: "and upon the defendant accepting that as a result of the obligations being quashed ab initio, the convictions stand to be quashed if the claimant brings an appeal under the provisions of the 2015 Act."

In those circumstances, the court has no choice as to what course it must take. Its obligation is to give effect to the quashing of the Exclusion Order ab initio by quashing convictions that were returned for breach of its provisions. We do so. We quash those convictions. In doing so, we make it clear that it is a consequence of that quashing that not only the suspended order which was imposed falls away, but also the consequential financial orders which were made are also quashed.

If, as Miss Oborne has told us, the appellant has paid those sums, then they must be returned to him by the appropriate authorities.

Finally, we should record that this appeal is brought in the name of "QX" because anonymity has been granted to the appellant in the context both of these appeal proceedings and in the context of the civil proceedings to which we have referred above. Nothing we say or do changes that position. The appellant is entitled to continued anonymity.