R v Lee

Facts

Ashcott Solicitors Ltd, the appellant, acted as litigator for Joshua Lee in the Crown Court at Manchester. He faced six counts of supplying, and possessing with intent to supply, Class A and Class B drugs. On 27 November 2024 police executed a warrant at an address in Bury and arrested him with two co-defendants. They seized drugs, cash and mobile phones. The prosecution alleged that he was a key operator in the "JNR drug line" and that over 21,000 "flare messages" had been sent from a number linked to him. Its case relied substantially on communications and attribution evidence extracted from mobile devices. The defendant accepted he was a heavy drug user, but said he was in debt to dealers who had made him live at the premises and had used his phone. He was convicted and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. The prosecution had served a 34,812-page download report from his iPhone. The appellant claimed payment under the Litigators' Graduated Fee Scheme in Schedule 2 to the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013 on a PPE count of 10,000 pages, the cap. The Legal Aid Agency's Determining Officer allowed communications, location, attribution and web data, plus 10% of the image data. His written reasons gave a total of 6,876 pages, and the total was later confirmed at 7,211 pages. The appellant appealed under regulation 29 of the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013.