Mr Q

Mr Q was trafficked from Vietnam as a child in 2013 for the purposes of forced labour. In April 2017 he was convicted at Warrington Magistrates’ Court of cultivating cannabis and sentenced to 20 months’ detention in a young offenders’ institution.

Mr Q first came to the attention of the authorities in 2014 but subsequently went missing from local authority care. He was likely re-trafficked within the UK. In 2015, shortly after his disappearance, the Home Office determined that Mr Q was a victim of trafficking.

Two years later, in 2017, Mr Q was arrested inside a cannabis farm and pleaded guilty in the magistrates’ court to a single count of cultivating a class B drug. In 2018, the Home Office, again, concluded that he was a victim of human trafficking.

The CCRC received an application for review of the conviction in October 2019.

During review, the CCRC considered that Mr Q had a statutory defence available to him under section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act but the legal advice given to him did not inform him of the availability of that defence. That defence would probably have suceeded.

Consequently, there was a real possibility the Crown Court would find that the prosecution of Mr Q was an abuse of process by reason of a failure on the part of the prosecution to consider and apply its own policy guidance.

The CCRC referred the conviction in May 2023.

The Crown Court quashed the conviction in June 2023.