R v Peter Gifford & Anor

MR JUSTICE CAVANAGH: These are renewed applications for extensions of time for appealing and for leave to appeal against conviction, extensions and leave having been refused by the single judge.

The applicants Peter Gifford and Penelope Lawton are partners. In 2016 each of them was a defendant in two trials at Truro Crown Court. The first trial was for mortgage fraud. Shortly before the first trial the two applicants absented themselves and fled abroad. The judge, Mr Recorder Tyson, considered whether to proceed in their absence and decided to do so.

Solicitors and counsel had acted for the applicants in making submissions as to why the trial should be adjourned but once the judge ruled that the trial would go ahead they withdrew on the basis that they were professionally embarrassed.

The trial, which we will call the mortgage fraud trial, therefore went ahead in the absence of the applicants and without them being represented.

The central allegation in the mortgage fraud trial was that the applicant had given false information about their incomes in order to obtain mortgages over a property in Cornwall.

On 15 January 2016, at the end of the mortgage fraud trial, Mr Gifford was found guilty on count 1, obtaining services by deception; Miss Lawton was found guilty on count 2, obtaining services by deception; both of the applicants were found guilty on counts 3 to 5 which were counts of fraud.

There was a third defendant in the mortgage fraud trial. This was Mr John Girdlestone who was Mr Gifford's accountant. He was accused of knowingly assisting the applicants to carry out the mortgage frauds, particularly by providing references for them. He did not abscond and was present and represented at trial. Mr Girdlestone was acquitted of all charges in the mortgage fraud trial.

The second trial of the applicants was for money laundering offences. We will call this the money laundering trial. Once again the applicants voluntarily absented themselves from this trial and they were not represented. Mr Girdlestone was again, at first, a defendant. He attended and was represented but in the event proceedings against him did not proceed on health grounds.

The trial proceeded before His Honour Judge Clark who decided that the trial should proceed in the absence of the applicants.

The main count in the trial, count 1, was concerned with a conspiracy to transfer criminal property, namely £319,636.92. The prosecution alleged that this sum had been transferred to an account in United Kingdom controlled by Mr Gifford from an account in the United States. The sum was almost exactly equivalent to $500,000.

The prosecution case was that this sum was part of the proceeds of a $6.33 million fraud that had been perpetrated in Germany or Switzerland against German victims and that the applicants knew that the money was the proceeds of fraud. Mr Gifford was found guilty on count 1. In light of this guilty verdict the jury were not required to return a verdict on the other counts against Mr Gifford, counts 2, 3, 4 and 6, as the facts of these counts were subsumed in count 1. Miss Lawton was acquitted on count 1 and she was also acquitted on a count of possession of criminal property.

Mr Gifford was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for the mortgage fraud offences and a further six years' imprisonment for the money laundering offences, making a total of nine years, as they were consecutive. Miss Lawton was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for the mortgage fraud offences. Confiscation orders were also made.

A warrant for the applicants' arrest was issued on 4 January 2016. A European Arrest Warrant was also issued. The applicants say that they were not served with any warrants, but that is beside the point. They knew full well that they were, to put it colloquially, "on the run" and they had arranged matters so that they could not be found to be served.

Since January 2016, the applicants have made no effort to surrender to the court and have not served any part of their sentences. They remain in an undisclosed location in what must be assumed is a foreign country. Despite this, over eight years after these trials, the applicants filed applications for leave to appeal against conviction. In order to proceed with an appeal they would require an extension of time of 3,057 days in relation to the mortgage fraud trial and, in the case of Mr Gifford, an extension of 2,967 days in relation to the money laundering trial. They would also have to show that they have arguable grounds for appeal.

Despite having absconded from the jurisdiction and still being on the run, the applicants have communicated with this court in relation to their appeals. They filed applicants' notices, accompanied by a skeleton argument dated 26 June 2024 and extension of time reasons. Then, after they waived privilege and the court obtained the comments of counsel who had been instructed for the mortgage fraud trial, they served a written response to those comments. Further, following the refusal of an extension of time and leave to appeal by the single judge, the applicants filed detailed renewal submissions in two documents dated 30 June 2025 and also filed a bundle of documents entitled "DPP exhibits bundle" which runs to over 150 pages.

There is a great deal of duplication in these documents, some of which at least appear to have been drafted by a non-legally qualified individual on behalf of the applicants. Despite the repetitious nature of the applicants' submissions, we have carefully considered all of the grounds they rely upon, both in relation to the extension of time and in relation to the appeals themselves.

There does not appear to have been any question of the applicants themselves appearing at today's hearing as a return to this jurisdiction would render them liable to arrest on the outstanding warrants and because they have failed to surrender to serve their sentences. However, the applicants apply to be represented by a person named as His Excellency Lord Duke Admiral Lawrence Olivier Campbell at today's hearing. Mr Campbell does not have rights of audience and would not have been acting simply as a McKenzie friend. The proposal was that he would have made submissions in court on behalf of the applicants. The court refused this application.

We deal first with the applications for extensions of time. As we have said, the applicants seek very lengthy extensions amounting to more than eight years. We refuse these extensions. The only reason for the delay in appealing is that the applicants deliberately absconded and left the jurisdiction before the first of the two trials. We consider it to be absolutely clear that, contrary to what is suggested by the applicants, they became aware of the convictions at or very shortly after the conclusion of the trials and therefore many years before they filed their appellants' notices in 2024.

On 2 February 2016, Miss Lawton emailed the court saying:

In any event, even it were true that the applicants only discovered the fact of their convictions in 2024, that would be the result of their decision to abscond rather than to face trial in 2016 and to remain as absconders. That is not a good reason for an extension of time.

The applicants suggested that it was only when they received certificates of conviction that they became aware that they had been convicted and so conceived a desire to appeal. The applicants' notices were filed some four months before the date when the applicants said that they became aware of the certificates of conviction. In fact, the certificates of conviction were issued in 2016.

The applicants say that the delay results from the fact that each of the applicants has been suffering from a psychiatric injury resulting from these "false allegations" causing them to suffer stress, loss of weight, breakdown in their relationships with each other and mental torture. There is not a shred of evidence, such as medical evidence, to support these contentions and in the absence of any such evidence these contentions are not capable of belief.

The applicants also say that the delay was because they were unable to afford legal representation and so were unable to proceed until they were introduced to Mr Campbell whom they describe as a friend of a friend. This is not credible. This is not the real reason why they delayed over eight years before appeal.

As these applications for leave to appeal must be dismissed because no extension of time is granted, we will deal only relatively briefly with the substance of the grounds relied upon by the applicants. We stress again however that we have examined their grounds and other documents carefully to see if any arguable potential grounds of appeal can be found within them. They cannot.

The applicants say that the trial should not have gone ahead in their absence. This is a hopeless contention. The applicants travelled to France by car through the Eurotunnel December 2015, knowing full well that the trials were imminent. They took their two daughters with them. They laid a false trial to suggest they had gone to Egypt when they had not done so. The trial judges each carefully considered whether the trial should go ahead, applying the test laid down by the House of Lords in Jones [2003] 1 AC 1 and they gave reasons for their decisions to proceed. They were plainly and unarguably right to proceed. There was overwhelming evidence that the applicants had voluntarily absented themselves and so had, by implication, waived their right to attend the trial. They had ample opportunity to attend and chose not to do so. There was no indication when, if ever, they would return and so if there had been a postponement the adjourned trial would not have taken place within a reasonable time. There is a general public interest in trials taking place within a reasonable time.

The third defendant Mr Girdlestone had attended court for the mortgage fraud trial and would have been unfairly prejudiced if the trial had not gone ahead, especially given his age and general health. A vast amount of the evidence was in documentary form. Each of the judges gave careful directions to the jury to deal with the applicants' absence in a way that was fair to them. This is borne out by the fact that Miss Lawton was acquitted of the money laundering offences.

Again, it is not arguable that there is any ground of appeal based on the fact that the applicants' representatives withdrew. This was entirely the result of the applicants' own actions. They had misled their legal advisers and had given false assurances that they would attend. The legal advisers had taken advice from their professional bodies. The judges ensured that the trials were fair, despite the absence of the applicants and the lack of representation and gave appropriate directions.

So far as the grounds relating to the convictions in the mortgage fraud trial are concerned, none of them is arguable. There was very strong evidence in documentary form, including tax information filed by the applicants, which demonstrated that the statements of income that the applicants had given to mortgage brokers and others in order to obtain mortgages over the property were fabricated and false. Simply to state that the applicants had not in fact acted fraudulently in relation to the mortgage applications does not give rise to arguable grounds of appeal. The applicants had had every opportunity to attend their trial and to put their side of the story, but they chose not to do so. The fact that Mr Girdlestone was found not guilty demonstrates that the jury examined the evidence carefully and fairly.

As for Mr Gifford's conviction in the money laundering case, once again there is no arguable basis for appealing on the grounds that the conviction was unsafe. It is suggested in the renewal grounds that the indictment was void because the allegation of money laundering related to money that was sent to Mr Gifford's account from the United States. This is a hopeless suggestion. The money was received in a bank account in the United Kingdom. The fact that the underlying fraud which led to the money laundering took place in Germany is nothing to the point.

There was overwhelming evidence that Mr Gifford was involved in money laundering in relation to the sum of £319,636. The prosecution provided uncontroverted evidence at trial about the fraud perpetrated on five German nationals which resulted in the transfer of sums from the person who was alleged to have perpetrated the fraud, Yvonne Buerch, to an American lawyer called Julian Fairweather, and from her to a man called Richard Carpenter who then transferred the sum of £319,636, a shade under $500,000, to an account in Falmouth, Cornwall controlled by Mr Gifford. There was therefore clear and uncontroverted evidence that the money was the proceeds of fraud. As for whether Mr Gifford was aware of this, the evidence once again was overwhelming. Mr Gifford did not give evidence and so did not put forward in the witness box a lawful explanation for the source of this money. There had been suggestions that this was a fee or commission from Mr Gifford's work on development projects but there was no evidence whatsoever of any such projects, or of any such work being done by Mr Gifford which would justify such a large fee. Mr Gifford had no track record of such work.

The bank manager gave evidence and told the court that when a suspicious activity report was triggered by the bank following receipt of this money into Mr Gifford's account, he never produced any paperwork to show that there was a legitimate source for the money. Furthermore, within a short period of receipt of the money, Mr Gifford spent a large proportion of it on personal expenditure, including the purchase of a Range Rover car. Finally, the police found evidence on Mr Gifford's computer consisting of documents that referred directly to Yvonne Buerch and the money from the five defrauded German investors and the police also found fraudulent HSB banking documents on the computer.

There was nothing in the conduct of the trial or the summing-up that could even arguably lead to the conclusion that Mr Gifford's conviction in the money laundering trial was unsafe. There was nothing inconsistent in the fact that Miss Lawton was acquitted in the money laundering trial. The money went into a bank account that was controlled by Mr Gifford, not Miss Lawton. Indeed the fact that she was acquitted shows that the jury did its job carefully and conscientiously and did not automatically convict the applicants because they had absented themselves.

The documents submitted by the applicants make reference to various rights or alleged rights of European Convention on Human Rights and various other international treaties. None of these references provides any support for the contentions that these convictions are unarguably unsafe. Similarly, general and unfocused allegations of judicial bias or miscarriage of justice do not give rise to arguable grounds of appeal.

For these reasons an extension of time is refused and leave to appeal is refused.

Earlier this morning the court received further letters from the applicants, although dated 12 December 2025, in which they ask for bail. As we have not granted leave to appeal, the question of bail does not arise. Even if we had granted leave to appeal, this would not be an appropriate case to grant bail in circumstances in which there can be no doubt that the applicants are fugitives and have not provided the court with any information about their locations.

In his decision to refuse an extension of time, the single judge initialled the box to indicate his view that if the court regarded the renewed application for leave to appeal as being totally without merit the court should consider making a loss of time order. We do indeed consider that the applications for extension of time and the grounds of appeal are totally without merit. It is not appropriate to make a loss of time order as the applicants are not currently serving their sentences, though they may do so in the future. However, we make an order under section 18(6) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 for the applicants to pay the reasonable costs of the transcripts in this case in the sum of £440.64.