R v Wadah Mohammed Abdulla Hassan

On 12 June 2024 the appellant was convicted of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs, a co-accused was convicted in his absence and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 42 months.

The facts can be summarised as follows. Operation “Inner Kilo” was an investigation into Class A and Class B drug dealing on the Exeter Drive Estate in the Broomhall area of Sheffield. Police surveillance began in April 2019. Three drugs lines were linked to the conspiracy, the “MO” line, the “Pie” line and “Pie2” line. It was estimated that the combined daily value of the three lines was in the region of £4,000. The alleged conspiracy involved 16 defendants in total.

During police observations occurring between May 2019 and July 2019, the appellant and the co-defendant Wassame were seen associating with others involved in the conspiracy at or near flats on the estate, said to be connected with the conspiracy. The evidence indicated that these flats were at the centre of the operation and were said to have been used to bag up and weigh the drugs and restock supplies. Drug dealing appears to have taken place on the stairwells of those flats or in close proximity thereto.

On 23 July 2019, the police executed warrants at a number of addresses and various items were seized. Several arrests were made which included the arrest of the appellant's brothers. The appellant was arrested at his home address on 7 November 2019. He replied "no comment" to all questions during interview and he did not thereafter give evidence at trial. The prosecution case was that the appellant was involved in the conspiracy to sell drugs on the estate. The evidence against the appellant was circumstantial and relied on telephone and observation evidence and in particular, his close association with co-conspirators and defendants and his proximity to the relevant flats during police observations.

In relation to the telephone evidence against the appellant, the prosecution was unable to identify a particular number which was being actively used by the appellant during the period of the conspiracy. Their case was that his observed use of the mobile phone on two occasions could be directly linked to activity on the MO drugs line. On 24 June 2019 at 14.13 hours, the appellant was seen using the phone when data showed that there was a 14-second incoming voice call on the MO line at 14.17. On 1 July 2019, when he was observed tapping on a phone, phone data showed an outgoing call from the MO line, following an incoming call to 2 minutes later.

The prosecution case was that the appellant not only knew what was going on but was himself involved in the conspiracy. Given the arrest of his brother some months before his arrest, he could have had the opportunity to get rid of the phone and other evidence prior to arrest.

To prove the case the prosecution relied upon the following:

The defence case was that this evidence did not prove the appellant's guilt. It was equally consistent with the appellant being a customer rather than a party to the conspiracy or simply a friend of the conspirators. The issue for the jury was whether there was a conspiracy and, if so, whether the appellant was party to it. An application of no case was made at half-time upon the basis that the evidence was so inherently weak that it ought to be withdrawn from the jury. The application was rejected.

We can summarise the ruling of the judge as follows. The judge set out the test to be applied, then he summarised the evidence. He pointed out that upon a number of occasions the appellant was observed going to the landing where the relevant flats were located. He noted that the appellant spent a significant amount of time there and interacted, clearly on friendly terms, with defendants who admitted guilt. He said that in his view generally the mobile phone evidence was not meaningful. He rejected certain specific attempts to link the appellant to a phone call associated with the MO drugs line as requiring the jury to take a leap of faith which would be pure speculation on their part. With regard to the surveillance evidence the judge concluded that it showed a pattern of the appellant spending time on the balcony with others who were co-conspirators with whom he was on friendly terms. The judge held that the existence of the conspiracies was not in dispute, nor that the appellant was on friendly terms with certain of the conspirators. The judge also said this:

The issue for the jury was whether the evidence established that the appellant was party to the conspiracy or might be equally consistent with the appellant visiting friends or being only a customer of the conspiracy. The judge distinguished the appellant's position from that of the other known customers of the conspiracy, and he concluded that it would be a reasonable inference for a properly directed jury to draw, but the appellant must at least have been aware of the conspiracy. If they came to this conclusion, they would then have to go on to decide whether the only sensible explanation for the appellant's presence was that he played an active part in it. He concluded by holding that a properly directed jury could, looking at the evidence as a whole, come to the conclusion that they were sure on that evidence that the appellant was participant in the conspiracy and that therefore there was evidence on which the jury could properly convict him on the counts on the indictment.

Mr Barton, on behalf of the appellant, has argued that the evidence against the appellant was so weak that the judge should have acceded to the submission of no case to answer, and the case should have been withdrawn from the jury. Accordingly, the convictions are unsafe. The evidence was purely circumstantial. There was no telephone evidence against the appellant, as the judge rightly found. The surveillance evidence showed no more than the appellant being present on a number of occasions with other defendants and behaving in a way that showed that he knew some of those present. On the occasion when the appellant can be seen to be handed cannabis that he placed in his pocket, this demonstrated no more than that the appellant was supplied with drugs and there was no evidence of onward supply. There was no other inculpatory evidence. The judge was wrong to conclude that evidence relating to co-accused’s possession of significant quantities of cash was capable of assisting the jury with the case against the appellant. Finally, the judge should have directed the jury to ignore the evidence he himself had found was inherently weak and not probative, namely the telephone evidence.

Ms Randall, for the Crown, says that this was par excellence a matter for the jury. The evidence adduced was more than sufficient to meet the half-time threshold. It consisted of mobile phone evidence albeit largely discounted by the judge and observation evidence of association and connection to drug dealing, all of which was inconsistent with the appellant being nothing more than a customer. The Crown had always accepted that the case against the appellant was largely circumstantial. But reliance upon such evidence is common in conspiracy cases of this sort. The Crown's case for the jury was based upon different stands of evidence from which the jury was asked to draw common sense conclusions. The judge's reasons were full, balanced and measured and cannot sensibly be challenged. As trial judge he was best placed to form a considered view.

We turn to our conclusions on the submission of no case to answer. The starting point is that we view the ruling of the judge as fair and balanced. He addressed all of the relevant categories of evidence and he was careful in his own analysis to draw differences in the weight to be attached to each piece or category of evidence. This is not a case where, for example, it can be said that the judge omitted to address key facts, or gave a clearly skewed and erroneous account of some material piece of evidence. This means that we are at base reviewing an exercise of judgment. We must also bear in mind that a trial judge, having heard the prosecution case, is best placed to weigh the evidence and this must particularly be the case in relation to circumstantial evidence, which may have to be assessed in the context of the wider evidence as a whole which might, by way of illustration, shed light on whether customers normally frequented the locations in issue and/or met with groups of defendants.

It is not the function of this Court to decide whether we would have taken a different decision to that of the judge. Our role is to decide whether the judge, who had knowledge of all the evidence tendered in the case as a whole, took a lawful decision acting within the discretion of a trial judge, bearing in mind the sort of case that this is.

We turn now to an alternative submission which proceeds upon the basis that the judge properly rejected the half-time submission. Mr Barton criticised pages 13H and 14A of the transcript of the summing-up. There the judge made clear to the jury that there was no relevant telephone evidence connecting the appellant to the conspiracy. The judge later said to the jury similar things in relation to the timing of photographic evidence by the surveillance team. However, later the judge refers to a particular call on 24 June. The judge proceeds to give the jury guidance on how to weigh this evidence, highlighting whether it has a probative value given the problems connected with identifying the timing and accuracy of the telephone data and its connection to the appellant. He implied that the jury would have to think very hard about the connection and he was clearly suggesting that this evidence carried little, if any, weight.

With respect, we disagree. The judge's analysis in the summing-up was more nuanced than that set out in the judgment on the half-time submission. He was entitled, in our view, to take account of the fact that the telephone evidence was before the jury and that a more detailed analysis of it was required. In summing-up, he addressed evidence relied upon by the prosecution, he addressed it in detail; he did not say it should be ignored altogether. He left the matter to the jury coupled to a strong indication that they should give it no or strictly limited weight. In our judgment, the judge was entitled not to instruct the jury in categorical terms but instead to place the evidence which was already before the jury into a broader context. This was a matter for the judge having considered all the evidence and the closing speeches of prosecution and defence counsel.

For all of these reasons we dismiss the appeal.