Duncan Smith, Wallace

Wallace Duncan Smith was convicted in February 1994 of fraudulent trading and obtaining property by deception. Mr Smith received a sentence of six years’ imprisonment.

The CCRC inherited an application for review of the conviction from the Home Office in March 1997.

Following investigation, the CCRC considered that the conviction was materially similar to the facts in the House of Lords’ judgment in the case of R v Preddy (1996).

Mr Preddy had been convicted of mortgage fraud under section 15 of the Theft Act 1968 which created the offence of obtaining “property of another” by deception.

The type of property fraud practiced by Mr Preddy and others had the effect of inducing the victim (usually a bank or building society) to issue a cheque in favour of the defendant.

In 1996 the House of Lords concluded that although there had been deception, it could not identify any “property of another” obtained by the fraud.

The Lords ruled that Mr Preddy’s conduct in dishonesty was not apt to be prosecuted under that particular section of the Theft Act.

The decision allowed those convicted on similar facts to seek to re-open their convictions.

The CCRC concluded that there was a real possibility the Court of Appeal would quash Mr Duncan Smith’s conviction for obtaining property by deception and substitute it for an alternative offence.

The CCRC referred the conviction in April 2001.

The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in March2004 and substituted it for an alternative offence.