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Drug-trade Leeds cabbie faces £180,000 bill
A taxi driver who branched out into a more profitable line as a drugs courier has had his criminal lifestyle brought to a halt by Appeal Court judges.
Parvinder Singh Panesar, of Montague Avenue, Oakwood, Leeds, faces losing his home after the court in London hit him with a confiscation bill totalling more than 180,000.
Judge Michael Stokes QC ruled a judge had let Panesar off far too lightly when he ordered him to pay just 30,687, saying it would be unjust to make him pay any more.
Panesar argued his lifestyle was due not to his involvement in the drugs world but to his hard work as a self-employed taxi driver, six or seven days a week.
He said that his income as a cabbie was much greater than he had declared to Revenue and Customs.
But Judge Stokes said Panesar had paid off part of the mortgage on a previous home using 8,600 in cash "tainted" by drugs.
Sale
The money from selling that home had been ploughed into buying the Montague Avenue property, now valued at almost 200,000.
And, strictly applying laws designed to strip drug dealers of their ill-gotten gains, the judge said Panesar stood to lose every penny of equity he had in his home.
Panesar admitted conspiring to supply class A drugs when he appeared at Bradford Crown Court in October 2005. He was jailed for three-and-a-half years and later hit with the 30,687 confiscation bill.
However, prosecutors took the case to London's Criminal Appeal Court arguing Panesar had lived "a criminal lifestyle" and had not been ordered to pay anything like enough.
Judge Stokes, sitting with Lord Justice Maurice Kay and Mr Justice Plender, on Friday agreed, upping Panesar's bill to over 180,000 – including the 150,000 equity in his home.
Panesar had admitted his crime on the basis that he had, a few times, driven a drug dealer from Leeds to Bradford and had once agreed to store 1kg of heroin at his home. He had also been involved in "bagging up" drugs.
Judge Stokes said the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 demanded that Panesar be stripped of "the whole of the equity" in his home as the price of his involvement in the drugs trade.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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