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Convictions of Trafficking Victim Overturned

The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) has quashed the convictions of an Appellant who had been forced to work in a factory while being subjected to domestic servitude.  He had been provided with false documents to secure employment, which had led to his pleading guilty to associated offences.

Ben Douglas-Jones KC, instructed by Philippa Southwell of Birds Solicitors, represented the Appellant in BXR [2022] EWCA Crim 1483.

The Court of Appeal (Popplewell LJ, Johnson J and His Honour Judge Picton) accepted that he had, in Nigeria, been: at risk of persecution for being gay; subjected to sex slavery (including multiple rape); witnessed the murder of someone by immolation for being gay; and forced to agree to a “Covenant”, which included ritualistic elements.  He had then been trafficked to the UK in a state of debt bondage; and, in the UK, subjected to domestic servitude, sex slavery, and gay conversion therapy (“deliverance”) at the hands of ministers of a church.

The Court accepted that the prosecution had not been in the public interest.  Had the CPS known the trafficking circumstances responsible for the offences, as we have found them to be, and applied the 2013 Guidance, it would very likely not have prosecuted. 

Andrew Johnson appeared for the Respondent.