Crime — Drugs — Confiscation order — Defendant’s wife having interest in matrimonial home — Wife having guilty knowledge of illegal origin of husband’s wealth — Court including wife’s interest in confiscation order — Whether statutory power to confiscate wife’s interest — Whether confiscation required by public policy — Drug Trafficking Act 1994, s 8

Gibson v Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office [2008] EWCA Civ 645; [2008] WLR (D) 189

CA: May, Arden and Wall LJJ: 12 June 2008

The wife of a convicted drug dealer was entitled to keep her interest in the matrimonial home despite a finding in confiscation proceedings that she had guilty knowledge of the source of her husband’s wealth. The Drug Trafficking Act 1994 did not give the court power to bring her share of the equity in the matrimonial home within the confiscation order, since the assets were hers without any court order in her favour.
The Court of Appeal so held allowing an appeal by Marion Gibson from a decision of James Goudie QC, sitting as a deputy high court judge on 19 June 2007, reducing her half share in 50 Cartier Close, Warrington to a share of 12.5% pursuant to a confiscation order made on 29 March 2000 following the conviction of her husband Gene Murray Gibson at Manchester Crown Court for importing cocaine.

MAY LJ said the house had been bought in joint names. The 1994 Act applied to gifts, but did not affect Mrs Gibson’s interest in the house for which she had given consideration by bringing up her children and looking after the family home. The judge held that the taint of her guilty knowledge of her husband’s drug trafficking should be taken into account against her. He relied on two family cases, Customs and Excise Comrs v A [2002] EWCA Civ 1039; [2003] Fam 55 and Crown Prosecution Service v Richard [2006] EWCA Civ 849; [2006] 2 FLR 1220. The judge drew from them the underlying principle that where assets were tainted and subject to confiscation, public policy and justice required that generally the taint was decisive where there was complicity and guilty knowledge. The two cases relied on, however, concerned wives trying to persuade the court to transfer to them the husbands’ assets which were the subject of confiscation proceedings. Mrs Gibson’s assets were hers without any court order in her favour. Declining to order to transfer to a complicit spouse of property which was not hers was one thing: confiscating property she already owned was quite another. There was no identifiable power in the court, to supplement presently existing statutory provisions in violation of Mrs Gibson’s rights under art 1 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

ARDEN and WALL LJJ gave concurring judgments.

Appearances: Julie Case (Frank Howard, Warrington) for the claimant; David Bartlett and Rupert Jones (Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office) for the prosecuting authority.

Reported by: John Spencer, barrister