Mr FK

Mr FK, a Vietnamese national, was convicted following a guilty plea in August 2009 of cultivation of cannabis. He received a sentence of 20 months’ imprisonment.

The CCRC received an application for review of the conviction in December 2013.

During review, the CCRC obtained new evidence indicating that Mr FK should have been recognised by the Crown Prosecution Service as a credible victim of human trafficking and that he was compelled to commit the offence as a direct consequence of his trafficked situation.

There was therefore a real possibility the Court of Appeal would allow Mr FK to vacate his guilty plea and find that it was an abuse of process to prosecute him without due regards to the UK’s obligations under Article 26 of the Trafficking Convention.

The CCRC referred the conviction in April 2016.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction in February 2017.