Crown loses JBL appeal

Press, 24 February 1978, Page 2

Crown loses JBL appeal

PA Auckland The Crown has lost its appeal to increase the ninemonth jail term imposed on I the former JBL chairman, Jim Jeffs. A Crown prosecutor (Mr D. S. Morris) had earl-1 ler this week submitted to the Court of Appeal that the sentence imposed by the JBL trial judge. Mr Justice Somers, was inadequate. The President of the Court of Appeal (Sir Clifford Richmond) in an interim statement yesterday, said that on an appeal by the So-licitor-General against sentence, the Court had no power to increase the sentence unless the appeal was determined before the sentence had been served. Jeffs might be released from prison before the Court could give a decision in relation to his own appeal against conviction. “In these circumstances we think it desirable to say at this stage that we would tn any event dismiss the appeal against the sentence of nine months imprisonment imposed on him.” The Court would give its reasons more fully after all the appeals relating to the case had been heard.

(Eight former executives and directors of the JBL grout have appealed against convictions of conspiracy to defraud the public. The Crown has appealed against the sentence imposed on seven of the eight convicted men, including Jim Jeffs.) Sir Clifford said that although at first sight the sentence might appear lenient for such offences, a full review of the relevant evidence and a consideration of the various factors mentioned by the sentencing judge satisfied the Court that there were a number of circumstances in the case which would make it wrong for the Court to interfere with the sentence, either by increasing it, or by ordering the immediate release of the appellant from prison, as was urged bv Jeffs's counsel (Mr M. B. Williams). The Court expressed no opinion of Jeffs’s appeal against conviction at this stage, said Sir Clifford.