Background
Christopher Oates was prosecuted in the Crown Court at Manchester for historic child sexual exploitation offences arising from grooming gang activity in the early 2000s, together with a firearms charge and prostitution-related counts. On the fourth day of trial he pleaded guilty to causing child prostitution, causing prostitution for gain, and possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, and was sentenced on 26 June 2025 to 13 years and one month’s imprisonment, with separate 2023 offences taken into account. His solicitors, Mortons Solicitors Ltd, were funded under a Representation Order made on 5 September 2024 and governed by the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013.
A central piece of prosecution material was a download report from the defendant’s iPhone (exhibit AO/6), running to 6,109 pages. The report revealed drug-related imagery, emails containing photographs of cannabis, messaging records linked to gang activity, and a false identity used across a bank account and user account — all referenced in the Crown’s Bad Character application of February 2025. The defence solicitors claimed that 5,590 pages (91.5%) of the download report should be counted as Pages of Crown Evidence (PPE) for the purpose of calculating their Litigators’ Graduated Fee. The Legal Aid Agency’s Determining Officer allowed only 224 pages from the report, including call logs, chats, contacts, instant messages, and 5% of image pages (56 pages), giving a total PPE count of 2,001.
Mortons Solicitors appealed under Regulation 29 of the 2013 Regulations, arguing that the Determining Officer had set the PPE count too low. Costs Judge Leonard heard the appeal at the Senior Courts Costs Office.
The Court’s Holding
Costs Judge Leonard allowed the appeal in part, adding 190 pages to the PPE count. The Judge endorsed the Determining Officer’s methodology — identifying which categories of data within a phone download report merit inclusion in the PPE count and then assessing an appropriate percentage for image-heavy categories — as consistent with the approach approved in Lord Chancellor v Lam & Meerbux Solicitors [2023] EWHC 1186 (KB) and Lord Chancellor v IMS Law [2025] EWHC 2018 (KB). The Judge found no fault with the 5% allowance for images, noting that of 16,251 images on the device only approximately 120 depicted cannabis or children, equating to roughly 8.5 pages of relevant material, making a 56-page allowance generous.
However, the Judge found that three further categories should have been included because they were expressly referenced in the Crown’s Bad Character application: 184 pages of emails (containing photographs of cannabis referred to in the application), 2 pages of user account information (a false account highlighted by the Crown), and 4 pages of document files (including a bank account in the false name, one page of which was reproduced in the prosecution’s review summary). Following Lord Chancellor v Edward Hayes LLP [2017] EWHC 138 (QB), where key Crown evidence is extracted from a particular category of electronic data, the defence is entitled to have that underlying category counted in the PPE so they can test the Crown’s use of it.
The appeal therefore succeeded to the extent of an additional 190 pages of PPE. The question of the costs of the appeal was reserved pending further submissions from the parties.
Key Takeaways
- Electronic phone download data that has never existed in paper form is not automatically included in the PPE count; the Determining Officer must exercise a discretion guided by whether the material was of central importance to the trial, not merely helpful to the defence (Lord Chancellor v SVS Solicitors [2017] EWHC 1045 (QB)).
- The approved methodology for phone download reports is to assess each data category separately and, for large image sets, to allow a reasonable percentage rather than the full volume — a pragmatic approach endorsed in Lam & Meerbux and IMS Law.
- Where the Crown expressly relies on extracts from a category of electronic data in its own applications (such as a Bad Character application), the whole of that category should ordinarily be included in the PPE count so that the defence can test accuracy and context.
- Evidence not warranting PPE inclusion may still generate payment via a special preparation claim under paragraph 20 of Schedule 2 to the 2013 Regulations, calculated on reasonable hours spent reviewing it.
Why It Matters
This decision provides practical guidance for defence solicitors and Legal Aid Agency Determining Officers on how to assess PPE counts in cases involving voluminous phone download reports — an increasingly common feature of serious criminal prosecutions. The ruling reinforces that blanket claims for near-total inclusion of download data are unlikely to succeed, and that the category-by-category, percentage-based methodology is the correct framework. At the same time, it confirms that material the Crown itself highlights in formal applications cannot then be excluded from the PPE count on the basis that the defence need not engage with it.
The case also illustrates the interaction between the PPE regime and special preparation claims, reminding practitioners that the two mechanisms are complementary: material that falls outside the PPE count on grounds of peripheral relevance may still attract payment for the hours reasonably spent reviewing it, provided a separate claim is made under paragraph 20 of Schedule 2.