R v Shahnawaz Fiaz

__________________ Tuesday 10 February 2026 THE LADY CHIEF JUSTICE: I shall ask Mr Justice Andrew Baker to give the judgment of the court. MR JUSTICE ANDREW BAKER:

1. The appellant, Shahnawaz Fiaz, appeals against sentence with limited leave granted by the single judge.

2. On 5 February 2025, in the Crown Court at Liverpool, the appellant was sentenced to 6 years 9 months’ imprisonment, following his earlier guilty plea entered before that court on 6 December 2024 to a single count of conspiracy to defraud. There was a concurrent sentence of 6 months’ imprisonment for failure to surrender, contrary to section 6(1) of the Bail Act 1976.

3. The appellant was extradited to the UK to face those charges following arrest in Denmark on 17 September 2024. Under section 327(3) of the Sentencing Act 2020, the number of days for which the appellant was kept in custody awaiting extradition should have been specified in open court. That was not done; it may be because the necessary information was not provided. Following enquiries initiated by the Criminal Appeal Office to confirm the factual position, we now specify that the appellant was kept in custody for 69 days awaiting extradition.

4. It was rightly agreed that the appellant’s offence fell within category 1A within the sentencing guideline for fraud offences, giving a starting point of 7 years and a range of 5 to 8 years. The judge said that allowing for aggravating features in the case took the sentence to 9 years – an uplift of 2 years from that starting point. He then allowed 15% credit for the guilty plea and made a downwards adjustment because of significant delay in the case, before July 2023 when the appellant fled the jurisdiction, to arrive at the final sentence.

5. The two grounds of appeal for which leave was granted are these: firstly, that the uplift to 9 years from the starting point of 7 years was manifestly excessive; and secondly, that the sentence should have been reduced for totality because the index offence pre-dated a sentence of 4 years 8 months’ imprisonment imposed in February 2018 in the Crown Court at Bolton in respect of similar offending.

6. The appellant ran fraudulent used car sales brokerage businesses. His dishonest method was to agree 30-day sale or return terms with sellers, under which his business would take possession of cars for sale. The cars would be professionally valeted, photographed and marketed, with a view in each case to sale above a fixed price agreed with the seller, that should then have gone to the seller, leaving the balance, net of costs of sale, as profit for the appellant’s business.

7. The essence of the fraud was that, on a large scale, sale proceeds that should have gone to clients were used instead to fund the appellant’s lifestyle, which was expensive beyond his honest means. There was also a Ponzi scheme element to the method since payments to some clients, after persistence or threat of legal proceedings, would be generated only by selling the cars of other clients who would then not be paid.

8. The appellant first traded on this dishonest basis at scale as SK Performance Cars. That led to the Bolton sentence in February 2018. As with the index offence, the offending was prosecuted as a conspiracy to defraud. The conspiracy period indicted was 28 February 2014 to 1 November 2015, and the prosecution had evidence of 21 victims and a fraud value of a little over £500,000. The sentence followed a guilty plea. Mr Montgomery was unable to assist this morning as to when in those first proceedings the appellant pleaded guilty and therefore how much credit for plea was reflected in the sentence imposed of 56 months’ imprisonment.

9. When SK Performance Cars came under investigation as a possibly fraudulent operation, the appellant continued his scam through a new company, Mansouri Cars (BG) Ltd, operating from a converted warehouse in Birchwood Park, Warrington. That resulted in the Liverpool conviction and the sentence now under appeal. The indictment period was 1 April 2016 to 18 February 2018. The prosecution evidence identified 41 victims exposed to a risk of loss of just under £1.4 million, and causing them actual loss of £720,000.

10. The appellant used methods to distance himself from Mansouri, bringing a co-defendant into the conspiracy to be its public name and face, using non-personal email addresses and false names, including to most of his employees, many of whom thus did not know who he really was. The general pattern experienced by sellers was that they would visit the Mansouri premises, which appeared professional and had expensive cars on show. The sale or return agreement would be signed and Mansouri would take the car, the keys and usually the logbook. The car was sometimes sold in the 30 day period, but the customer would not be told if it was. If customers chased Mansouri by calling, sending emails or visiting, they would be fobbed off in a variety of ways. If they asked for their car to be returned, that would be promised but then re-delivery would not take place, or they would come to collect and find that the car was not at the showroom.

11. The reality would usually be that Mansouri had sold the car without telling them, and many sellers first found out about their sale from a DVLA notification of change of registered keeper. Mansouri would often then deny that the car had been sold. Whether the payment was ultimately made to sellers was fairly random. Some eventually received full payment – for example, after threats of legal action, and in one case after a threat to stand outside the showroom with a placard in protest. However, other customers received nothing, even after threatening or pursuing legal action. Some received only some of what they were owed; and for some, losses were aggravated by legal fees incurred but not recovered from Mansouri.

12. By late 2017 bailiffs attended because Mansouri was not paying council tax. Autotrader removed Mansouri’s access to its selling platform because of complaints, and some clients petitioned to wind Mansouri up. Trading Standards began to investigate in August, and Google reviews reported that the company was scamming people. Despite all that, the business continued bringing in cars where it could. Towards the end, very few new sellers saw any of their money.

13. Buyers were also victims, as Mansouri never owned the cars. If it could be said that the seller had not authorised the sale, there was a risk that the buyer did not acquire title. Some sellers brought legal action against buyers, some of whom paid compensation to their sellers, or returned cars.

14. The main beneficiary of the fraud was the appellant, who enjoyed a lifestyle of foreign holidays, high-end motor vehicles and lavish spending he could not honestly afford. He also spent a substantial sum on legal fees in relation to the prosecution for the SK Performance fraud. In December 2017 he paid £30,000 to a firm of solicitors, supposedly to go towards compensation in relation to that fraud, with a view to mitigating sentence, but that money was never in fact paid to any of his victims.

15. During the life of the Mansouri fraud, the appellant, under a false name, became involved directly in fobbing sellers off by telephone, email and in person. He promised to meet clients at the showroom and would then not attend; he would promise payments and then not make them, or make them in smaller sums. He was sometimes hostile. Most strikingly, a heavily pregnant client was abused over the phone. The appellant shouted at her, “I do not give a blind fuck that you are pregnant. It’s not my problem. You’re not my priority.” He was also, on the evidence, an abusive bully towards some of those working for him and he presided over a culture of abusive and threatening behaviour by them towards customers. It extended on one occasion to racial abuse and to the use of individuals described by victims as “stocky henchmen” or a “group of heavies”.

16. As the judge noted in his sentencing remarks, the harm caused by the Mansouri fraud was not just the very large financial harm to which we have referred. There was victim impact evidence of the knock-on consequences for some victims of the direct monetary loss, which extended to anxiety requiring therapy, and generally to a comprehensive sense of shock and betrayal. The appellant involved some of those working for him in ways that drew them into criminal complicity and used his brother as money launderer, which led to convictions and suspended prison sentences for them for their participation under the appellant’s direction.

17. In the criminal investigation into Mansouri, the appellant was interviewed twice in November 2018 and March 2021. He mostly declined to comment. To the extent that he suggested any position in response to the allegation of a fraudulent scheme, it extended only to hopeless claims that Mansouri was nothing to do with him and was not his company, and that this was “just a civil breach of contract matter”.

18. Apart from the SK Performance matter, the appellant had very little in the way of previous record: a common assault resulting in a fine in July 2014, and theft of a vehicle which resulted in a community order in September 2015, a breach of which led to an extension of the unpaid work requirement in February 2016. Although convicted as a theft, rather than as a fraud, the information before the judge was that the 2015 conviction, which related to an incident in late 2013 or early 2014, in fact involved the modus operandi that became the dishonest SK Performance and Mansouri business models.

19. The Mansouri fraud involved six of the seven high culpability factors in the sentencing guideline: the appellant played a leading – indeed dominant – role; he involved others through influence; he abused a position of trust and responsibility; it was a sophisticated, well-planned fraudulent activity carried out over a sustained period of time, with a large number of victims. It was offending of high impact, over and above financial loss; and the actual financial loss of £720,000, with a total value of about £1.4 million put at risk, already put the offence in category 1 for harm, the starting points for which are based on £1 million of financial harm caused or intended. There was aggravation from the appellant’s record – principally the SK Performance fraud; the fact that the appellant was under investigation for that when committing the Mansouri fraud; and the Bail Act offence, for which a concurrent sentence was imposed.

20. A notional sentence for the Mansouri fraud after a trial above the category 1A starting point of 7 years’ imprisonment was, we think, inevitable. There was little mitigation, apart from the appellant’s guilty plea and the delay in the proceedings. We consider it understandable that a sentencing judge, faced with these facts, might consider an uplift from that starting point of as much as 2 years.

21. There is the limiting factor that the maximum for the offence is 10 years’ imprisonment, and the sentencing guideline range is up to 8 years. The judge did not say, in so many words, that his finding was that it was unjust to sentence within the guideline range, but he was plainly aware that he was doing so – that is to say, going outside that range – and the prosecution had made a reasoned submission to him that a sentence near the offence maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment would be justified after a trial. Furthermore, the downward adjustment for delay applied by the judge should properly have been applied prior to giving credit for the guilty plea. Since the judge allowed 10 months for delay, his notional trial sentence for the Mansouri fraud was effectively 8 years 2 months’ imprisonment, only just above the top of the guideline range. In our judgment, that might be considered to be a stiff but justified notional trial sentence (subject to the point raised by the second ground of appeal). We do not consider it to have been manifestly excessive.

22. The full term of the Bolton sentence for the SK Performance fraud will have expired in October 2022, over two years before the conviction and subsequent sentence for the Mansouri fraud with which we are directly concerned. The Liverpool sentence was thus not a consecutive sentence, but the sentencing circumstances are covered by the sentencing guideline on totality in the section headed “Structuring consecutive sentences”. That section includes detailed guidance for sentencing offences committed prior to other offences for which an offender has been sentenced. It does not appear that the judge was reminded of the totality guideline, let alone provided with any submissions by reference to it. Nor, to our surprise, did Mr Montgomery appear this morning to have prepared for the appeal by reminding himself of it. The relevant paragraph of guidance confirms that, having identified the appropriate sentence for the offences being sentenced, allowing for totality by reference to those offences alone, the court “then has a discretion whether to make further allowance to take into account the earlier sentence (whether or not that sentence has been served in full)”. The guidance requires all the circumstances to be considered in deciding what, if any, impact the earlier sentence should have on the new sentence, and notes that it is not just a matter of considering what the sentence might have been if all offences had been dealt with together and then deducting the earlier sentence.

23. A non-exhaustive list is set out of circumstances, (a) to (h), that might be considered relevant to the exercise. It reads: “a. how recently the earlier sentence had been imposed, taking account of the reason for the gap and the offender’s conduct in the interim b. the similarity of the offences sentenced earlier to the instant offences c. whether the offences sentenced earlier and instant offences overlapped in time d. whether on a previous occasion the offender could have ‘cleaned the slate’ by bringing the instant offences to the police’s attention e. whether taking the earlier sentences into account would give the offender an undeserved bonus – this will particularly be the case where a technical rule of sentencing has been avoided or where, for example, the court has been denied the opportunity to consider totality in terms of dangerousness f. whether the instant offence qualifies for a mandatory minimum sentence g. the offender’s age and health, and whether their health had significantly deteriorated h. whether, if the earlier and instant sentences had been passed together as consecutive sentences, the overall sentence would have required downward adjustment to achieve a just and proportionate sentence.”

24. We do not consider that circumstances e., f. and g. arose here. Circumstances c. and d. might be said to have militated against making any or any substantial reduction in sentence in this case. There was no overlap of time between the SK Performance and Mansouri frauds (circumstance c.) and the prosecution for the SK Performance was manifestly the perfect opportunity for the appellant to “clean his slate” (circumstance d.) by offering up that his fraudulent activity using the very method he accepted to have been a fraud was not limited to SK Performance, but extended to the follow-up company, Mansouri.

25. On the other hand, circumstances a., b. and h., we consider, told in favour of making a meaningful reduction. The Bolton sentence had been imposed as long as seven years before (circumstance a.), the reason for that gap having been for the most part prosecutorial delay, caused in part it may be by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the appellant having for the most part stayed out of trouble during that period, although that was tempered towards the end of the period by his decision to skip bail in 2023. The offending activity was very similar (circumstance b.) and if the SK Performance and Mansouri frauds had been sentenced together with consecutive sentences, it would have been a clear case for a downward adjustment to keep the total custodial term within just and proportionate bounds (circumstance h.). Any adjustment made in such a situation, we envisage, would have been an adjustment that would have been made to some extent to both of what would then have been two consecutive sentences.

26. The judge dealt with this aspect very briefly. He noted the chronology and then stated that whilst submissions had been made as to totality and the extent to which he should properly reflect the fact that the Mansouri fraud had ended before the appellant was sentenced for the SK Performance fraud, “that can have barely any practical effect, given the fact that you launched another sophisticated fraud whilst on bail for that other matter”. The fact that the Mansouri fraud was launched whilst on bail for the SK Performance fraud was an aggravating feature that had been taken into account, and it would have justified the use of consecutive sentences had the two frauds been dealt with together. It would not have justified a refusal then to make any downward adjustment at all for totality; and the judge, with respect (but understandably we think, having not been taken to the totality guideline) in that regard erred in principle. We are obliged, therefore, to correct that error.

27. In our view, the appellant’s failure to clean his slate in 2018 is a powerful factor and justifies the conclusion that any reduction in sentence should not be as large as it might have been as a downward adjustment for totality across the two sentences if both conspiracies had been sentenced together. But the strength of circumstances a., b. and h., and stepping back and considering the facts as a whole, leads us to the view that the balance still comes down in favour of making some real allowance.

28. For those reasons we have concluded that the judge erred in sentencing the appellant. We re-sentence as follows. Prior to any reduction for delay in the proceedings and credit for the guilty plea, 9 years’ imprisonment; less 10 months for delay, following the judge but correcting for when that factor is taken into account, 8 years 2 months; less 15% for the guilty plea, 83 months, which is 6 years 11 months; less a downward adjustment for totality to have regard to the earlier sentence, we arrive at a final sentence of 6 years’ imprisonment.

29. The appeal against sentence is therefore allowed, but to that extent only. The sentence of 6 years 9 months’ imprisonment is quashed. We substitute a sentence of 6 years’ imprisonment, and we specify that the appellant was kept in custody for 69 days awaiting extradition to the United Kingdom in respect of the index offences. _____________________________ Epiq Europe Ltd hereby certify that the above is an accurate and complete record of the proceedings or part thereof. Lower Ground Floor, 46 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1JE Tel No: 020 7404 1400 Email: [email protected] ______________________________