Covid fines adding up to £14,000 issued to an east London electrical shop are set to be cancelled after it emerged the business was prosecuted unlawfully in secretive behind-closed-doors court hearings.
London Domestic Appliances was prosecuted twice in 2021 over alleged breaches of pandemic restrictions, when it was accused by Tower Hamlets council of continuing to sell white goods during Covid lockdowns.
The business was convicted by magistrates sitting at Stratford and Thames, and ordered to pay out two fines totalling £14,000, plus costs and fees amounting to more than £3,000.
However an Evening Standard investigation has uncovered that the prosecutions were brought unlawfully under the Single Justice Procedure (SJP) and the convictions are now set to be overturned.
The SJP system allows courts to dealt with defendants on written evidence alone, in controversial sessions conducted behind-closed-doors instead of in open court.
In 2021, the law only allowed for a “person” to be prosecuted using this system, meaning allegations brought against businesses should have been taken out of SJP and switched to open court. That rule was only changed last year to allow SJP business prosecutions.
A spokesperson for HM Courts and Tribunals Service conceded the London Domestic Applicances cases had been “incorrectly listed” in SJP sessions in July and December 2021 “due to human error”, and told the Standard: “We acted as soon as this issue was identified and the case will be re-listed.”
It is understood the cases are set to be put before a court once again for the convictions to be quashed, and it will be for Tower Hamlets council to then decide whether to mount a fresh prosecution. It is not yet known if the fines were paid by the shop owners.
When confronted over the error, a council spokesperson sought to defend the use of SJP by saying: “There was scope to argue that the SJP could be used for corporate defendants and we understand that other authorities had similarly used the SJP for corporate defendants.
“Nevertheless, if there was an error it was merely procedural.
“The defendant would otherwise simply have been charged by way of a summons and the case would have been proved in their absence if they failed to appear at court or enter a written guilty plea.”
When SJP was introduced in 2015, MPs were promised that the names of every defendant dealt with behind-closed-doors would be included on publicly available lists, while journalists would receive further details of the prosecutions.
However several prosecutions for Covid breaches – including those against London Domestic Appliances – were effectively rendered secret after they were omitted from the public and media court listings.
The Standard has also uncovered evidence that a second business was unlawfully convicted using SJP in one of these secretive court hearing.
Kyice’s Kitchen in Brick Lane was fined £1,000 for breaking the Health Protection regulations on December 9, 2020, when it is said food and drink were being served and consumed on the premises. The case was dealt with in July 2021, before the change of the law to allow SJP business prosecutions.
In the case against London Domestic Appliances, the firm was accused of breaking the lockdown rules on five occasions in November and December 2020, at a time when the country was under severe lockdown restrictions.
On March 30, 2021, a Trading Standards officer said he saw a sales assistant sitting at a desk in the doorway of the east London shop, which sells white goods including fridges, freezers, and washing machines.
In a sting operation, he asked the sales assistant “what type of fridge freezers he had for sale in his shop”, and was told he could visit the website or “look at high street suppliers with the option of price match or discounts if he chose to buy from the premises”, according to a court witness statement.
When the officer picked out a fridge freezer, it is said the sales assistant “offered to sell the fridge freezer for £399”, promising delivery and giving him a card machine to complete the transaction.
Lockdown rules at the time limited businesses to click and collect sales only, say the council.
A Guardian report on Wednesday revealed that more than 28,000 prosecutions have been brought for breaches of Covid-19 regulations since the start of the pandemic. At least £1.2 million in fines have been dished out since restrictions were finally removed more than a year ago, with cases still being brought to court each week through SJP.
In one of the latest prosecutions, Premier League footballer Cheikhou Kouyate was fined £1,100 for breaking the pandemic rules in 2021, in a case that took more than two years to reach court thanks to a huge backlog.
According to government statistics of a sample of Covid prosecutions, just 2 per cent of defendants obtained legal representation before being dealt with by the courts.
Sir Robert Neill, the Conservative MP and chair of the justice select committee, is among the figures to have questioned the use of SJP for Covid crimes, saying: "The single justice procedure wasn’t appropriate for these Covid cases."
London Domestic Appliances has been approached for comment. It did not enter any pleas to the original prosecutions.
