Further to our earlier post regarding the convictions, the UK’s judiciary has published the Sentencing Remarks relating to the sentencing of David Greenhalgh and Christos Farmakis (who was tried in absentia and is believed to be in Greece). They were convicted of supplying prohibited military equipment without a licence to a range of destinations including those subject to sanctions such as Libya, Sudan and South Sudan.
The Court noted the absence of published (or even analogous) Sentencing Guidelines for the court to follow and so approached sentencing by reference to previous decisions. Most influential appears to have been the decision in R v John Knight [2008] EWCA Crim 478 in which the court had given a range of factors to be considered including:
“the nature of the weapon, the quantities and values involved, the nature of the intended customer, the level of involvement of the particular defendant, the degree of planning by the defendant, his level of involvement, and his degree of knowledge and status. The Court went on to observe that in a case such as this, previous good character would count for relatively little, anything other than a significant term of imprisonment would be rare, and a deterrent element was appropriate“.
The court also noted that an assessment of the “harm” caused is “not confined to harm actually done but also by reference to the harm risked or intended, and the financial gain intended to the offender”.
The court assessed various aggravating features including the payment of bribes for fake end-user certificates, the longevity of the offending over 7 years (ending 9 years ago), the warning given of the need for UK licences, and the efforts to mask the conduct through companies and banking outside the UK.
Each man was given 9 years for Count 1, and 7 years for count 2 (to be served consecutively), with the jail term of 6 years for each of the other counts (7 and 8 respectively) to be served concurrently.
