Confiscation Law Handbook

Reviewed by Billy Little – HMP Bullingdon

With the law currently undergoing some significant changes and every penny earned being put under more and more scrutiny by various agencies, knowing how to protect that money seems all the more important.

The Confiscation Law Book provides everyone, from those who may have been stopped and searched, be a low-level drug dealer, the multi-million pound fraudster and/or the innocent businessman with vital information on where they stand in relation to the law and ‘their’ money.

The nine chapters cover a whole raft of areas and include:
1 – A brief history and overview of confiscation law.
2 – Basic principles of confiscation law.
3 – Restraint.
4 – Practise and procedure.
5 – Cash seizures.
6 – Enforcement, reconsideration of orders and appeals and the dead, absconded and insolvent.
7 – Case law.
8 – Civil recovery.
9 – Third-party interests.

The Confiscation Law Book offers both the novice and professional a clear and easy to use ‘table of statutes’, ‘table of statutory instruments’ and a significant ‘table of cases’ with all references being clearly linked to a page and paragraph number.

The chapter on ‘case law’ contains multiple and varied areas that clearly outline who has the power and what rights people have in matters concerning everything from ‘the three legitimate aims of confiscation’, ‘hidden assets’, ‘benefit’, ‘payment of prosecution costs’, ‘legal expenses’ and ‘managements receiver’s power of sale’ to ‘inadequacy of available amount’.

Basically if there is any form of threat being made against you by the courts or any other party, to anything that you own, then this Confiscation Law Book should be your first point of reference when setting out your pending case.

Apart from being well-written by a couple of professionals in this field, it is easy to see how something like this could become very useful to the ordinary con on the landing as s/he awaits a trial or is in the process of fighting an order placed against them by the courts.

Like many of these ‘specialist’ books it will be available to prisoners within the prison library, but only on request. Don’t expect to be able to take it out for long periods as other people will, particularly with the many recent changes to the law, want to have a look at this to see where they stand with their ‘assets’. This is an invaluable legal resource and one that should be treated with respect for the knowledge it imparts to the reader.