R v BXR [2022] EWCA Crim 1483
Ben appeared for the Appellant, a Nigerian victim of human trafficking, who had used a false passport to obtain employment prior to the coming into force of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
He had pleaded guilty to using a false instrument and fraud without telling his legal advisers that he had been trafficked. The Appellant had been persecuted and subjected to extreme violence and abuse for being of gay orientation in Nigeria and subjected to sexual violence and forced labour and servitude in the UK. He had been subjected to multiple rape and had later been put through a process of gay conversion “deliverance”.
The court admitted fresh evidence of the true position and found that the nexus between the trafficking and use of the passport reduced the man’s culpability to a very low level and that had the CPS known the facts, it would very likely not have prosecuted him.
His convictions were overturned.