Ashcott Criminal Solicitors Manchester ran a trial at Manchester Crown Court involving an allegation of smuggling a massive amount of cocaine.
The defendant was a single mother who was clearly acting under some form of duress when arrested by HMRC (Customs ) officers last year.
Interestingly another female was arrested in similar circumstances a week later but not represented by Ashcott Solicitors. Both women outlined similar details that they had been placed under duress by a gang of international criminals. The 2 cases proceeded to the Crown Court and at an earlier Plea hearing this year and one lady pleaded guilty on the advice of her lawyers using the duress element as mitigation only – she received just under 8 years imprisonment.
Ashcott Solicitors however were of the view that whilst duress is a notoriously hard defence to prove this was a case where the defence should be run. In addition experience told us that this was one of those cases where the mitigation would come out stronger as part of the trial than if simply presented to the court on a guilty plea.
The result – our client was unfortunately unable to convince the jury that her circumstances of duress were sufficient to get over the high bar set by the criminal defence of duress and she was convicted. However on sentencng the Trial Judge took all the matters raised as part of the defence into account and sentenced her to less than 5 years imprisonment – 3 years less than her associate who pleaded guilty.
Interestly a third defendant, not represented by Ashcott Criminal Solicitors ,who pleaded not guilty and also ran a trial was convicted and got 10 years.
The moral of the story – if you want to fight your case use Ashcott Criminal Solicitors Manchester – even when we lose we win.
