Osmond, R. v

Factual and Procedural Background

The Appellant, a solicitor and senior partner of Law Firm A, was convicted at the Central Criminal Court of tipping off and forgery, and received a suspended sentence of nine months’ imprisonment. His application for leave to appeal against conviction was referred by the single judge to the full court. [Para 23]

The case arose from a property transaction in which Client A provided £4 million through Company C toward the purchase of 10 Hays Mews, and the Appellant acted as solicitor in relation to the transaction and the related loan documentation. The Prosecutor later investigated the transaction as part of a wider inquiry into Company A and sent the Appellant statutory requests for information, including confidential questions about the funding of the purchase. [Para 25][Para 26][Para 27][Para 31]

After the initial contact, the Appellant told Client A about the Prosecutor’s approach, discussed the matter with him repeatedly, and later created and backdated a purported letter of engagement for use in the investigation. These events gave rise to the tipping off and forgery counts. [Para 33][Para 34][Para 35]

At trial, the judge made pre-trial rulings on the scope of the tipping off and forgery allegations, rejected a submission of no case to answer on count 1, and directed the jury in terms that led to convictions on both counts. [Para 99][Para 119][Para 127][Para 148][Para 149]

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether the judge was wrong to make pre-trial rulings that confined the tipping off case to disclosure of the 10 Hays Mews investigation, rather than leaving broader factual questions to the jury. [Para 94][Para 96][Para 163][Para 166]
2. Whether the Appellant’s information was received “in the course of a business in the regulated sector” for the purposes of section 333A(3) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. [Para 94][Para 119][Para 172]
3. Whether the Appellant’s conduct in producing the false letter of engagement could amount to forgery, specifically whether the Prosecutor’s investigator was acting “in connection with his performance of any duty.” [Para 95][Para 96][Para 122][Para 176][Para 177]
4. Whether the judge should have upheld the submission of no case to answer on the tipping off count. [Para 125][Para 126][Para 180]
5. Whether material from the later civil judgments in Company A’s litigation against the Prosecutor affected the appeal or should have been deployed at trial. [Para 158][Para 188][Para 193][Para 205]

Arguments of the Parties

Appellant's Arguments

• The judge unfairly narrowed the defence case by deciding issues that should have been left to the jury, particularly the source and scope of the disclosed information on count 1. [Para 151][Para 152][Para 154]
• The information disclosed in 2018 came from the Prosecutor, not from the Appellant’s regulated-sector work, so section 333A(3)(c) was not satisfied. [Para 152]
• The relevant investigation was said to be the broader inquiry into Company A, which was already public, so the jury should have been allowed to decide what investigation was actually disclosed and whether prejudice arose. [Para 153]
• On forgery, the Appellant argued that “duty” in section 10 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 required more than a duty owed by an employee to an employer, and that the investigator was only exercising powers, not performing a duty. [Para 155]
• The Appellant also relied on the civil judgments in Company A’s proceedings against the Prosecutor, saying those findings should have been disclosed and were relevant to prejudice and possible abuse of process. [Para 156][Para 158]

Respondent's Arguments

• The Prosecutor submitted that the indictment concerned disclosure of the investigation into suspected money laundering in relation to 10 Hays Mews, not the wider Company A investigation. [Para 94][Para 163]
• It argued that the Appellant received the relevant information in his capacity as a solicitor handling a financial and real property transaction, which placed him within the regulated sector. [Para 94][Para 119]
• On forgery, the Prosecutor contended that its investigator was acting under a duty to his employer when receiving the false document, so the statutory requirement was met. [Para 95][Para 120][Para 122]
• On the no case submission, the Prosecutor maintained that actual prejudice need not be proved and that the jury could infer likely prejudice from disclosure to the target of the investigation. [Para 127][Para 180]

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The Court rejected the complaint that the pre-trial rulings usurped the jury’s function. It held that the rulings were needed to secure efficient and fair case management and to prevent the trial from being diverted into irrelevant material. [Para 161][Para 162]

On the tipping off count, the Court said the prosecution was entitled to define the relevant disclosure as the investigation into money laundering in connection with 10 Hays Mews, even though that enquiry sat within the wider Company A investigation. The fact that the wider investigation was already public did not prevent there being a disclosure for section 333A(3) purposes, because the specific Hays Mews investigation was what mattered. [Para 163][Para 164][Para 165][Para 166][Para 167]

The Court also held that the “regulated sector” element was plainly satisfied. The Appellant was acting as a solicitor in a real property and client-money transaction, so the information came to him in the course of that business, and it did not matter that the information originated from the Prosecutor. [Para 172][Para 173][Para 174]

On forgery, the Court held that “duty” was not confined to a statutory duty. A public investigator conducting a criminal investigation in the course of employment is acting in connection with the performance of a duty, and the fact that the Prosecutor had power rather than duty to investigate did not matter. [Para 176][Para 177][Para 178]

The Court rejected the no case submission because actual prejudice need not be proved; the issue was whether disclosure was likely to prejudice the investigation. It held that disclosure to the target of an investigation is inherently likely to cause harm or disadvantage, and the jury was entitled to reach that view. [Para 180]

The Court further held that the later civil judgments in ENRC 1 and ENRC 2 did not assist the Appellant. ENRC 1 concerned earlier misconduct by different officials, while ENRC 2 addressed causation in civil claims and did not establish that the Company A investigation was unlawful or relevant to the Appellant’s criminal liability. [Para 185][Para 188][Para 191][Para 193][Para 204][Para 205]

Holding and Implications

Leave to appeal was refused. The Court held that the proposed appeal was not arguable. It nevertheless granted leave for the judgment to be cited because this was said to be the first case on the tipping off provisions in section 333A(3) to reach the Court of Appeal. [Para 209]

The direct consequence was that the Appellant’s convictions stood, and the decision provides authoritative appellate guidance on the scope of tipping off, the regulated-sector element, and the forgery “duty” requirement. [Para 23][Para 209]