Leveson P, Globe and Cheema-Grubb JJ recently handed down an important judgment in Boateng [2016] EWCA Crim 57 in which the Court:
(1) held that where the illegal entry into the UK is facilitated, the person whose entry is facilitated does not have to have any mens rea for the breach of immigration law involved; Kaile [2009] EWCA Crim 2868 distinguished;
(2) held that it is perfectly proper to indict facilitation by reference to a breach of s.3 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999;
(3) analysed where the line should be drawn between technical / drafting errors in an indictment and errors which cause it to become fundamentally flawed; and
(4) analysed the difference by nullity of guilty pleas, adding context to Nightingale, and pleas entered following erroneous legal advice where “a clear injustice has been done”.
Ben Douglas-Jones appeared for the Crown.
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