Bribery Act 2010 – the first conviction

Samuel Price, Morton Fraser LLP.

Munir Patel, an administrative clerk at Redbridge Magistrates’ Court in Ilford London who admitted accepting a £500 bribe to avoid putting details of a traffic summons on a court database’ has become the first person to be convicted under the Bribery Act. His sentence of three years’ imprisonment ¹ for a s2 offence (the offences relating to receiving a bribe) gives a first indication of the extent to which the courts will use the new sentencing powers in the Act, which allow for increased sentences of up to 10 years (raised from seven years under the previous law).