Justice for Shokat Chenia

Drugs conviction quashed, leave to appeal to House of Lords on fraud case granted

On 17th November 1998 at Nottingham Crown Court, I was convicted on the charge of conspiracy to defraud. On 4th December 1998,1 was sentenced to a total of eight years on this indictment. On 1st April 1999 at Leicester Crown Court I was convicted of conspiracy to supply Class A and B drugs and sentenced to twelve years. The two sentences were to run consecutively, making a total of twenty years.

I am an innocent victim of police malpractice, legal incompetence and biased judges

The Case
             The charge against me for fraud was that I knowingly contracted with suppliers to build a golf club with no intention of paying them. The reality was that I was only an innocent dupe. Some of the golf club's creditors who brought civil actions suddenly realised they had no chance of being successful in the Civil Courts and turned to the police. The police, in effect, became judge and jury.

I am serving eight years for this and, despite an appeal, the Court recently upheld this conviction.

With the drugs case the police installed a listening device at the golf club in the hope of obtaining incriminating evidence against me. The police lied to a magistrate in order to obtain a search warrant on a separate matter and, during this search, planted their bugs. The authority for this surveillance came from the Chief Constable.

The drugs case is based on 179 audio tapes coming from this covert police surveillance operation and the crucial evidence was obtained after the warrant had expired. It is alleged one of the voices on the tapes is mine. An informer who was given immunity from prosecution for his testimony claims this.

The Trials
                   The solicitors in the fraud trial were incompetent and repeatedly failed to follow my instructions. The Judge showed blatant bias, illustrated by the fact that he banned me from receiving domestic visits whilst on remand during the duration of the trial despite being told by trial counsel he had no power to do so.

The broad details of the drugs trial reveal all of the same failings: Police misconduct, poor representation and a malign judge. The CPS delivered their 179 surveillance tapes to my defence only two weeks before the trial. I partly blame my solicitors for not dealing with this matter properly but, despite my counsel protesting more time was required to translate, transcribe, analyse and instruct expert witnesses, the Judge refused to give them this and implied it was somehow my entire fault. My counsel said that, in such circumstances, they were unable to defend me properly and, after consulting with the Bar Council, withdrew from the case. The Judge again implied that this was my fault and ordered me to defend myself. As I had even less access to all of my CPS papers, this was beyond me. As the case was so ill prepared, it led me to make SIX applications to change my solicitor but the Judge refused, whilst actually praising my solicitor for his I obviously couldn't represent myself any better than my counsel, so I was eventually allowed to have new counsel after the prosecution QC intervened. They had the same problem - little or no time to analyse the 179 tapes. The Judge again refused to give counsel this provision who in turn declared that they were "professionally embarrassed" being unable to defend me properly having, as they put it "with one hand tied behind their back" and asked to withdraw. In the event a deal was made with the prosecution and, against my instructions, they continued with the case. The 179 tapes at the centre of the case were still not even listened to by the defence, or even the two which were a compilation of the 179 tapes - a problem the Judge again hinted was due to me. The Judge was obstructive and blamed me for every failing on the part of Counsel, which only made the experience more traumatic. Indeed, during the course of the trial, the Judge made racist remarks towards me.

The whole culture surrounding the trial was one designed not to give me a fair hearing. At all times there was a high level of security. Police barriers were placed outside the court with everyone having to be thoroughly searched, scanned and required to produce ID before being allowed to attend the hearing. Also, there was jury protection with each member being collected and delivered to the building each day. The Judge, in effect, required that the members of the jury suddenly become voice experts, helped the prosecution and held private meetings with prosecution counsel despite stating in court that everything should be canvassed in open court.

The Appeal
             It has taken me five years to get to this stage. Initially, during the early stages of the process, the single judge refused to grant me leave to appeal on anything despite the trial judge's remarks that he was not paying attention to what is called the "totality principle" into account as he was aware I had already lodged an appeal and would allow the relevant appeal courts to make any necessary adjustments. I was "knocked back" on legal aid as well but fortunately family and friends clubbed together and financed the process and, on 19th December 2000, the full court of appeal granted leave to appeal against both the fraud and drugs case on every single point raised including:

  • An unfortunate remark by the trial judge during the drugs trial which had a racial connotation
  • The involving of a "smokescreen" of the execution of the Magistrate's search warrant for completely different purposes - to raid the club
  • The raid when I was arrested was a clear breach of the terms of authorisation granted by the Chief Constable of Leicestershire.
  • A manipulation of the process of the court and therefore an abuse of process

Despite writing to the Appeal Court on a monthly basis to discover when the matter was to be heard, the Appeal court did not sit until October 2002; no real reason has been given to me for this. I cannot thank Charles Benson enough. He was my co-accused counsel at the drugs trial and was so moved by what he saw that he threw himself into appeals and enlisted the help of Robin Spencer QC and between them finally got my drugs conviction and sentence quashed.

My drugs conviction was quashed in November this year. However, of all the grounds of appeal the Court dealt with only the most technical and narrow ones. Of the seven points only two were heard. This rarely happens in the Court of Appeal. My understanding -1 was informed unofficially after judgement had been given -was because of the embarrassment due to the Judge's racial remarks, unfairness and bias. In this way they avoided dealing with the misconduct of the police and the shocking behaviour of the trial Judge. However, a re-trial has been ordered. This is very disappointing. Having relied on illegally obtained evidence and sabotaging my defence efforts, the CPS should not have been allowed a second chance. I could also serve a double punishment in having to start my sentence again. A re-trial will also hamper my chances of moving to an open prison and chances of parole. Added to this, key witnesses are not available because they have died or moved abroad over the past five years. A retrial will be even worse than the original trial.

The fraud conviction and sentence still stands. I do not believe the full facts were addressed as appeal solicitors failed to raise the issues with counsel, who in turn couldn't raise the issues of unfairness and bias which were repeated at the drugs trial with the Lords. None of the current legal team was present at the original trial and had no understanding or any familiarity of the circumstances. Despite many requests by me to raise these matters with the appeal solicitors, as it was considerably worse than the drugs trial, they only went with one point of appeal. On reflection, I remain convinced if they followed my instructions and pursued these avenues of unfairness, bias and general incompetence, the fraud conviction and sentence would have been quashed as well. When I became aware of this I wrote a letter to the Lords but the solicitors never even bothered submitting it or let counsel have it.

However, I remain hopeful of a future appeal hearing before the House of Lords, if leave is granted.

Continued Unfairness:
                  The abuse I have suffered at the hands of the judicial system continues. I have now decided to find new solicitors because of their failure to represent me properly in the fraud appeal. This is dragging this business out longer but they are also utilising dirty tactics because they do not want to let go of my case and claim Junior and QC will not represent me if I change solicitors. They did not perform for me by ignoring my directions and that is why I still remain in prison convicted of fraud.

Despite appeals being pending all of my assets have been seized and sold. I lost my business, my home and my good name.. My family have suffered badly. I also have a deportation order hanging over me because I happened to be born in what was a British colony. Now the country is one of the less pleasant places in Africa. This is despite the fact that all of my family, including children, are British and exclusively English speaking.

If there are any other people whose cases involve NCIS or listening devices, I would like to hear their experiences especially if police misconduct is alleged. Advice is also welcome.

Thank you for your support,

Shokat Chenia

Shokat Chenia

HMP Rye Hill                    

Willoughby

Warwickshire

CV23 8SZ