A man who pleaded guilty to producing cannabis despite being a victim of human trafficking as a child has had his conviction overturned.
Mr ‘Q’ was trafficked from Vietnam as a child in 2013 for the purposes of forced labour. In April 2017 he was arrested inside a cannabis farm and convicted at Warrington magistrates’ court of cultivating a class B drug and sentenced to 20 months custody.
Now his conviction has been overturned at Liverpool Crown Court following a referral by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The CCRC is an independent body set up under the Criminal Appeal Act 1995. It is responsible for independently reviewing suspected and alleged miscarriages of criminal justice in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland and funded by the Ministry of Justice.
Despite the charges relating to activity linked to being trafficked into the country, Mr Q’s legal advice overlooked that he could have applied a defence under section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act.
Mr Q first came to the attention of the authorities in 2014 but subsequently went missing from local authority care. He was likely re-trafficked within the UK. In 2015, shortly after his disappearance, the Home Office determined that Mr Q was a victim of trafficking.
This is the latest CCRC referral related to miscarriages of justice against victims of human trafficking, following a previous case involving a Vietnamese teenager working on a cannabis farm in Leicester.
In the Leicester case ‘Mr K’ was found working on a cannabis farm after being trafficked to the UK from Vietnam in 2016. In May 2017, the-then 17 year old pleaded guilty to the production of cannabis at a Youth Court and was sentenced to a 12 month referral order. But last year a judge at Leicester Crown Court directed a not guilty verdict.
Helen Pitcher, Chairman of the CCRC, said: "The law is quite clear that nobody should face charges for actions directly linked to being a victim of modern slavery. We urge any trafficking victims who feel they have received an unjust conviction to contact us and we will investigate their case.”
Referring to Mr Q's case she said: "Our review has found that this young man has been let down by a wide range of agencies involved in his prosecution. The guidelines suggest he should never have been prosecuted in the first place."
