R v Oghenochuko Ojiri

This is an application for leave to appeal against sentence which has been referred to the full court by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals. She has done that because it is, as far as can be discovered, the first occasion when a person has been sentenced for an offence contrary to section 21A of the Terrorism Act 2000, and there are no sentencing guidelines which deal with that specific offence. For those reasons we give leave.

The appellant is now 53 years old. On 9 May 2025, he pleaded guilty before the magistrates' court to eight offences contrary to section 21A of the 2000 Act. He was committed for sentence to the Crown Court, pursuant to section 70 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. That is a power to commit for sentence where confiscation proceedings are contemplated in the Crown Court. However, the magistrates' indicated that if they had not committed under that power, they would have committed for sentence under section 14 of the Sentencing Act 2020. This gave the Crown Court powers to sentence limited only by the statutory maximum. The statutory maximum sentence for this offence is five years' imprisonment.

The guilty pleas were entered in the magistrates' court at a time when the appellant became entitled to full credit for them, which he in due course received.

The sentencing hearing took place on 6 June 2025 at the Central Criminal Court before Cheema-Grubb J. She imposed Special Custodial Sentences of three years and six months, pursuant to section 278 of the Sentencing Act 2020 because by virtue of his convictions for these scheduled offences, the appellant fell to be dealt with as an offender of particular concern. The custodial term was two years and six months, and the extended licence period was 12 months. All of those sentences were ordered to run concurrently, resulting in a total term of three years and six months, with a custodial term of two years and six months.

The facts of the offending were shown by a thorough investigation into the appellant's conduct during the period between about September 2020 and December 2021. The eight offences were committed between 24 October 2020 and 18 December 2021. They resulted from the appellant's failure on each of the eight occasions to disclose information while operating in a Regulated Sector. The judge found that at the material times the appellant believed that a person with whom he was dealing, namely Nazeem Ahmad, had committed or attempted to commit offences contrary to sections 15 to 18 of the Terrorism Act 2000, and failed to disclose these transactions to the authorities, as he was required to do.

The offending in which the appellant believed Nazeem Ahmad to be engaged was fundraising for terrorism. The terrorism concerned was that which was being perpetrated by Hezbollah.

The appellant entered business in the art market late in life when he established a gallery which was designed to promote artists and to sell their work. He had previously operated in altogether different fields and had had a successful career in the media and in dealing in, among other things, vintage clothing.

The art market had, until 10 January 2020, not been subject to the Terrorist Financing Money Laundering Regulations 2017. On that date that changed. Thereafter, the art market was part of the Regulated Sector.

Nazeem Ahmad was subject to counterterrorist action by the United States Department of the Treasurer's Office of Foreign Office Assets' Control. On 13 December 2019, he was designated as a financier of the proscribed terrorist organisation, Hezbollah, and thereby subject to sanctions within the United States of America. He was not designated and subject to sanctions in this jurisdiction until after the period with which we are concerned. The relevant United States authorities assessed that Ahmad was using a network of limited companies to launder substantial amounts of money destined for Hezbollah. He was a famous collector of valuable works of art, and his designation attracted considerable publicity in the art world. By this stage, the appellant had been active in that world for nearly a year. It is agreed that this designation came to his attention very soon after it happened, at the end of 2019 and before any of the eight transactions with which we are concerned occurred.

Evidence from the appellant's mobile phone indicated that he accessed a New York Times article which dealt with this episode very soon after it was published in December 2019. The investigation revealed that that was followed by discussions between the appellant and another person about the consequences of the art market being now within the Regulated Sector and subject to the 2017 regulations. This subject was explained in some detail to him by an acquaintance, to which the appellant replied, "Yeah, I know". A further discussion took place much later in 2020 with another contact specifically about art sales to Ahmad. The contact between Ahmad and the appellant all took place after those discussions had taken place.

Eventually, Ahmad purchased, by these eight transactions, art works at a total price of about £140,000. In dealing with the internal records of his business, the appellant went to some trouble to conceal the identity of this purchaser. There were conversations which were found on his phone between him and Ahmad about how that concealment might take place. On two occasions in November 2020 and again in March 2021, the appellant sought identification from Ahmad so that he could purportedly comply with legislation in relation to money laundering. The identification which he received on each occasion was, to his knowledge, false. Invoices were prepared and retained within the appellant's business without the purchaser's true name.

When he was eventually arrested and interviewed on 18 April 2023, the appellant provided a prepared statement which was dishonest and falsely claimed that the customer named Nazeem had been unknown to him in his true identity until after the course of trading had come to an end. In that prepared statement he said that he had no reason to suspect that Ahmad was a terrorist or a money launderer.

In July 2023, at a further interview, the appellant said that he regretted giving that prepared statement and made a number of admissions. He backed up that stance, as we have said, by tendering early guilty pleas.

The sentencing judge, whose experience of this type of work is unrivalled, approached the case by reminding herself of the relevant guidelines: the general guideline overarching principles; the totality guideline; the reduction in sentence for a guilty plea guideline; and the imposition of community and custodial sentences guideline. She followed meticulously the approach stipulated in the general guideline overarching principles for sentencers dealing with offences for which there is no offence specific guideline. That was the position here.

That general guideline requires sentencers to consider relevant decisions of this court when dealing with such cases. There are no decisions of this court dealing with this offence. The question which we have to consider, among others, is whether there are any decisions for offences which are truly analogous to the present offence.

The judge's sentencing remarks are a model of clarity. She found that the appellant believed that Ahmad was somebody who had committed terrorist financing offences and then, despite that belief and despite his knowledge of the regulatory system, failed to disclose them to the authorities when he should have done. That state of mind is one which falls within the provisions of the offence created provision itself. The duty to disclose is triggered by knowledge of those facts, or by suspicion, or by the offender having reasonable grounds to have such suspicion, even if they do not in fact harbour it. In that scale of states of mind within the Act, belief is near the top, being very close to knowledge. Indeed, it falls short of knowledge only because the amount of admissible evidence in these proceedings as to what Ahmad had actually done was limited. Therefore the judge found, as she approached the analysis required by the general guideline, that these offences involved a high degree of culpability and a moderate to high degree of harm. She rehearsed the relevant facts, as we have summarised them above. She found that the appellant had deliberately withheld information from the authorities and that he had not been manipulated into doing so by Ahmad, but had been a willing participant in the concealment of what should have been disclosed. She found that the appellant's conduct involved a degree of sophistication and showed the belief that we have already identified.

Having found a high level of culpability and a moderate to high degree of harm, the judge went on to identify what would be the appropriate sentence for a single offence. She said:

The judge then went on to consider aggravating and mitigating features. As aggravating features, she identified, first, the fact that the appellant knew at all times that Ahmad was actually subject to sanctions in the United States of America. Secondly, she referred to the active steps taken to conceal the identity of the person to whom he had sold the pictures. She said that that was done "for no other reason than to defeat the regulations and hide your business relationship to secure financial and reputational gain". Thirdly, the judge took into account, in arriving at the final sentence, the fact that she was not dealing with a single offence of failure to disclose, she was dealing with eight separate transactions over more than a year.

So far as mitigation is concerned, the judge referred to the material which had been placed before her and which has been placed before us. The appellant had had a high reputation and had no previous convictions. He had never, therefore, been sent to prison before. In a letter written to the judge the appellant expressed remorse which the judge was sure was genuine. She acknowledged that the results of the investigation, the convictions and the sentences would be devastating for the appellant and his close family. There were character references which showed that he was highly regarded by good judges of character. It was also true that the appellant's experience of working in the Regulated Sector was limited at the material time.

Mr Irwin, who appeared in the court below as he does before us on behalf of the appellant, made the submission to the judge, and has repeated it to us, that culpability in this case should be markedly reduced by what he described as the appellant's naivety. We will return to that later in this judgment. The judge did not think that that was appropriate. She did, however, observe that there is no evidence that any of these pictures were actually sold by Ahmad at inflated values, or at a profit. There is very limited understanding of precisely what Ahmad was up to in purchasing the items from the appellant. It is important, as the judge clearly appreciated, to observe that this case did not involve any money moving from the appellant to any terrorist organisation or other criminal source. All the money in this case came to him; it did not move in the other direction. The appellant did not use any of the money for terrorist purposes. That is why he is not charged with any offence of funding terrorism or the like, and his criminal guilt is limited to the offences of failing to disclose.

The judge also referred to a psychiatric report which had been placed before her. It shows that the appellant has developed a clinical depressive disorder of severe intensity.

She felt that the aggravating features necessitated an uplift, and that the mitigation justified a reduction. She did not quantify either that uplift or that reduction. The final sentence, as we have said, was three years and nine months' custody, before the deduction of one third for the very early guilty pleas. It may perhaps be that the judge decided that the aggravating factors required her starting point of two years to be doubled, and then made a reduction of three months to reflect the mitigating factors. Whether that is right or not, the sentencing remarks do not reveal.

We have heard submissions of a very persuasive kind from Mr Irwin arguing his grounds of appeal, and equally helpful and persuasive submissions in response from Mr Harris on behalf of the Crown.

The grounds of appeal are, in summary, first, that the judge failed to have sufficient regard to the naivety or lack of experience within the Regulated Sector of the appellant at the relevant time. Mr Irwin also identifies other mitigating factors to which we have already referred, and submits essentially that the judge failed to have sufficient regard to them. Mr Irwin also relies before us, as he did before the judge, on a decision of this court in R v Swan [2011] EWCA Crim 2275. That was a serious case of failing to disclose money laundering in the context of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. It involved similar sums of money and similar manipulation of the system. It did not involve any terrorist organisation.

In response, Mr Harris submits that none of these grounds identifies any error of principle by the learned judge. He relies upon her findings of fact as findings to which she was entitled to come. He identifies the aggravating features to which again we have already referred in setting out the facts of the case.

It is worth recording that the attempt of Mr Irwin on behalf of the appellant before the learned judge was to persuade her that a sentence could be passed at such a level that it might lawfully be suspended. That was a high hurdle to attempt to surmount in view of the decision of this court in Attorney General's Reference (R v John) [2022] EWCA Crim 54. That decision holds that such a sentence imposed on an offender of particular concern can lawfully be suspended, but of course it must be two years or less before that becomes possible. The additional 12 month licence period is to be included for those purposes in calculating the term of the sentence. Accordingly, the custodial term would have to be 12 months or less before such a submission could lawfully be entertained

It is appropriate to say something about the decision of this court in R v Swan. In our judgment, that decision is of very limited assistance in the context of the case with which we have to deal. It is, of course, a decision of some antiquity and it deals with the facts of the particular case which the court had to consider and the sentence which had been imposed on the appellant Swan.

So far as money laundering is concerned, matters have moved on in sentencing practice since 2011. It is not altogether clear that the decision in Swan would be persuasive in a similar case should it arise again now. Certainly we consider that it would be an error to carry across the result in Swan into offences committed contrary to section 21A of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Mr Irwin's submission that all such offences involve terrorism and therefore that the mere fact that terrorism is involved cannot itself govern the seriousness of any individual case does have some superficial attraction, if we may say so with respect to him. The fact that this is an offence created by the Terrorism Act 2000, and intended to restrain behaviour which might promote terrorist action and to require compliance with the enforcement system within this jurisdiction is not, in our judgment, irrelevant to assessing the seriousness of this offence. Clearly, where commercial activity is carried on with a view to substantial gain in a way which is intended to circumvent the disclosure obligations and to conceal the nature of the transactions involved for the benefit or a terrorist organisation, that must constitute serious criminal offending. Hezbollah were at all material times a proscribed organisation. Their proscription occurred because they engaged in armed terrorist acts across borders. They are a very substantial and powerful organisation. That is why they were proscribed. Committing a criminal offence and which may assist others to finance Hezbollah without being detected, as they should be, is serious criminal activity.

There is, as the judge accepted, much that can be said in the appellant's favour. All those matters which we have identified in summarising her approach to mitigation do redound to his credit. We cannot, however, accept that he is to be regarded as a naïve offender. He may have been – and was – an inexperienced art dealer. But by the time that this series of transactions started, he was fully aware of his obligations, of Ahmad's activity, and of the reason why those obligations arose in respect of it. He may have been naïve in believing that by making changes to invoices on his laptop computer he could avoid detection for his offending, but that is not the same thing as to say that the offending itself arose out of naivety. He knew what he was doing and he committed these offences in order to make a very substantial sum of money. There is nothing naïve about that.

We turn to the judge's reasoning. First, we agree with her that a single offence of this kind, adopting her description of it which we have quoted above, should result in a sentence of at least two years' custody, before taking into account and balancing the aggravating and mitigating factors. That two year term refers to the custodial part of the sentence for offenders of particular concern, and not to the whole period of the sentence.

We also agree with the judge that the most significant factor to be taken into account in then determining the final sentence, in addition to the matters which had led to the adoption of the two year term in the first place, was the number of offences, their duration and the acts of concealment. Not every offence of failure to disclose involves deceit and concealment in addition to that failure to disclose. Those offences of failure to disclose which do involve deceit are considerably more serious than those which do not.

For those reasons we consider that it was necessary to increase the two year term substantially to reflect those matters in particular. It was also necessary to make a reduction on account of those mitigating factors which were found to exist. The psychiatric condition of the appellant is obviously the result of the fact that his offending has been detected, he has been convicted and sent to prison. Those consequences were probably not generated by the simple length of the custodial term, but by the whole process, most of which was inevitable, whatever sentence was imposed.

For those reasons we consider that the approach taken by the judge was appropriate. She took a term of two years' custody for a single offence and made a very significant increase to it. She reminded herself that it was necessary to ensure that the total sentence was proportionate. Having done that, we consider that she clearly did adjust the result to reflect the mitigating factors. That is the process which is required by the combination of guidelines which affect this sentencing exercise. In our judgment, the result was not manifestly excessive or wrong in principle. Rather, it was arrived at by sound process of reasoning, based on sound findings of fact and a proper adjustment for totality.

In all of those circumstances, this appeal against sentence is dismissed.

Thank you both very much. It is, if I may says so, a great pleasure to be treated to advocacy of such a high quality. Thank you both very much indeed.