Costs Decisions
Selected Senior Courts Costs Office decisions concerning criminal legal aid remuneration in which Jonathan Turner appeared or was the advocate/appellant.
Jonathan accepts instructions from solicitors in criminal legal aid costs appeals and related costs proceedings, subject to fee agreement.
Criminal legal aid costs authorities
Grouped by the principal remuneration issue so that practitioners can identify potentially relevant decisions quickly, including AGFS and LGFS questions concerning PPE, electronic evidence, special preparation, trials and cracked trials, retrials, multiple indictments and separate case fees.
PPE, electronic evidence & special preparation
Electronic prosecution evidence, page counting and remuneration for unusually substantial electronic material.
R v Sajid Khan — SCCO Ref 05/19 — 26 March 2019
Point: calculation of Pages of Prosecution Evidence under the AGFS where the prosecution evidence included substantial electronic material. The appeal also considered service of the appeal material. The Senior Costs Judge concluded that more electronic material should have been allowed as PPE.
Result: appeal successful in part.
Read judgment (PDF)R v Adil Khan — SCCO Ref SC-2020-CRI-000122 — 24 August 2020
Point: the proper PPE count under the LGFS for served electronic evidence, including telephone-download material, and whether cover sheets and additional electronic data qualified as PPE. Jonathan Turner appeared as counsel for the appellant solicitors.
Result: appeal dismissed. The judgment nevertheless contains detailed consideration of electronic evidence and PPE principles.
Read judgment (PDF)R v Ridwan — SCCO Ref 118/19 — 26 September 2019
Points: whether a hearing listed for trial but adjourned before a jury was empanelled amounted to a trial or cracked trial for AGFS purposes; and the treatment of electronic mobile-telephone material and paper cover sheets as PPE.
Result: appeal successful in part. The Costs Judge held that the hearing was a cracked trial, but increased the PPE to 2,810 pages, including additional electronic material and further paper pages.
Read judgment (PDF)R v Hanif — [2023] EWHC 272 (SCCO)
Point: special-preparation remuneration for reading electronic prosecution evidence above the applicable PPE limit, where the material was served in a format that made analysis unusually difficult and time-consuming.
Result: appeal allowed in substantial part. The Costs Judge rejected a purely minutes-per-page approach and allowed 75 hours of special preparation for reading just over 3,000 excess pages.
Read judgment (PDF)Trial, cracked trial & hearing classification
Whether proceedings attract trial, retrial, cracked-trial, guilty-plea or main-hearing treatment.
R v Ojapah — SCCO Ref SC-2019-CRI-000062 — 28 April 2020
Point: whether proceedings following the interruption of the original trial and substitution of counsel constituted a retrial for LGFS purposes. Jonathan Turner appeared at the costs appeal for the solicitors.
Result: appeal successful; the Costs Judge concluded that a retrial had been ordered and the relevant retrial payment provisions applied.
Read judgment (PDF)R v Ridwan — SCCO Ref 118/19 — 26 September 2019
Points: whether a hearing listed for trial but adjourned before a jury was empanelled amounted to a trial or cracked trial for AGFS purposes; and the treatment of electronic mobile-telephone material and paper cover sheets as PPE.
Result: appeal successful in part. The Costs Judge held that the hearing was a cracked trial, but increased the PPE to 2,810 pages, including additional electronic material and further paper pages.
Read judgment (PDF)R v Brame — SCCO Ref SC-2020-CRI-000142 — 12 January 2021
Point: whether the later hearing attracted the AGFS main fee or only a sentence fee where guilty pleas had previously been entered, but the principal count required amendment/re-arraignment and the prosecution did not formally accept the pleas and offer no evidence on the remaining counts until the later hearing.
Result: appeal successful. The Costs Judge held that the later hearing was the main hearing and attracted the main fee.
Read judgment (PDF)Indictments, separate cases & fee classification
Multiple or altered indictments, separate-case fees and offence banding/classification.
R v Hall — SCCO Ref SC-2020-CRI-000225 — 2021
Point: whether multiple iterations of an indictment, including a stayed or quashed indictment followed by a further indictment, generated a separate case fee.
Significance: the decision is expressly cited in the Legal Aid Agency's Crown Court Fee Guidance alongside R v Wharton and R v Moore. The guidance cites Hall for the proposition that a stayed or quashed indictment does not itself establish a second case where the later indictment is, in substance, an amendment of the original; in that situation only one case fee is payable.
Legal Aid Agency Crown Court Fee Guidance (v1.21, October 2025) — see R v HallR v Trung — SCCO Ref 244/19 — 19 December 2019
Point: whether two separate indictments, dealt with on the same day, were heard concurrently or consecutively for graduated-fee purposes, and whether a separate guilty-plea fee was payable in addition to a cracked-trial fee.
Result: appeal successful; the Costs Judge held that the two indictments/cases were dealt with consecutively, not concurrently.
Read judgment (PDF)R v Sykes — SCCO Ref SC-2020-CRI-000066 — 17 June 2020
Point: the fee consequences of severance and the subsequent preference of a new indictment: whether there had been a trial and retrial or two distinct cases on separate indictments.
Result: appeal successful in part. The Costs Judge held that there were two separate proceedings and that two separate graduated trial fees were payable.
Read judgment (PDF)R v Davidson — SCCO Ref SC-2019-CRI-000155 — 9 November 2020
Point: whether changes to proceedings involving a multi-defendant drug-conspiracy indictment amounted to a quashed/separate indictment capable of generating a separate cracked-trial fee, or instead amounted to amendment/separate trial arrangements within one indictment.
Result: appeal dismissed.
Read judgment (PDF)R v Wharton — SCCO Ref SC-2020-CRI-000195 — 1 February 2021
Point: whether replacement/amendment of an indictment meant that there were two operative indictments and therefore two cases for AGFS purposes.
Result: appeal dismissed; the Costs Judge held that the indictment had been amended rather than creating two operative cases.
Read judgment (PDF)R v Zamir — SCCO Ref SC-2020-CRI-000164 — 8 January 2021
Point: AGFS offence classification/banding where the indictment alleged conspiracy to rob but the defendant ultimately pleaded guilty to theft added as a second count.
Use: a published Costs Judge decision concerning graduated-fee classification where the offence charged and the offence ultimately disposed of differ.
Read judgment (PDF)The short summaries are descriptive only. The judgment should be read in full before relying on a decision, together with the regulations and guidance applicable to the representation order and claim in question.
Costs appeals
Enquiries from solicitors concerning criminal legal aid remuneration, redeterminations and appeals to the Senior Courts Costs Office are welcome. Jonathan accepts instructions in costs cases, subject to fee agreement.