AG v Ahier (Royal Court : Sentencing (Criminal) : MacRae) [2026] JRC 068 (27 February 2026)

JUDGMENT THE BAILIFF: 1. Terence Colin Ahier, you are 23 years of age, and you appear to be sentenced for seven counts of knowingly using forged paper money. You pleaded guilty on the day of your trial.

2. In November 2024, the States of Jersey Police received an influx of reports from various businesses reporting the use of counterfeit bank notes. This was a consequence of you using counterfeit English £20 bank notes at seven different businesses in various locations and you did so successfully on all bar one occasion.

3. When you were interviewed after your arrest, you made no comment. The footage of you making purchases and the other material produced in the course of the investigation indicated that on each occasion you made a small purchase in terms of value designed to obtain as much genuine currency by way of change as you could receive. On one day, 15 November, you went to three different shops within the space of one hour and presented a forged English £20 note at each and made a small purchase.

4. When you were charged with the offences last July, you entered not guilty pleas which you maintained when you were arraigned in this Court. The case was set down for a three-day trial. Accordingly, having pleaded guilty at the eleventh hour on the day of the trial, you will receive minimal credit for those pleas of guilty.

5. You have previous convictions, although none of particular relevance to this offence. You were sent to prison for 18 months by the Royal Court in 2021 for grave and criminal assault and breach of probation and community service orders.

6. We note from the pre-sentence report that you still refuse to accept full responsibility for these offences although today through your counsel you say that you do. You have not revealed where the counterfeit money came from, save to say today that it came from someone you did work for. You refused to engage with any community orders that might be considered in this case when speaking to the Probation Officer, although you have changed your stance through your counsel today. In any event you have previously breached such orders through non-compliance. Accordingly, there is no recommendation for an alternative to custody today, at least in the Probation Report even if the Court was minded to consider one, which it is not as the custody threshold has been passed and there is no alternative to an immediate prison sentence.

7. Possession and use of counterfeit money is a serious offence and has been recognised as such by the courts for a long time. Generally, the sentence is one of immediate imprisonment and the Court has previously held that people who use such money and do so deliberately as you did should expect to go to prison unless there are very strong or exceptional circumstances. It is essential that there is public confidence in the currency circulating in the island. You used these notes in several retail premises over a nine-day period. You are at high risk of reconviction. We agree with the Crown that a custodial sentence is inevitable, and we also agree and find that there is no strong let alone exceptional mitigation available in your case.

8. We have had regard to all that has been said on your behalf and the contents of the pre-sentence report, and we are able to reduce the Crown's conclusions slightly principally on account of your age. You were only 22 when committing these offences. We have also given weight to the relatively small number of notes that were passed.

9. In those circumstances the sentence of the Court is 15 months' imprisonment concurrent on each count making a total of 15 months' imprisonment.

10. In view of your means and the sentence we have passed we make no order for compensation.

11. We order the forfeiture and destruction of the counterfeit bank notes. Authorities R -v- Howard [1986] 82 Cr. App. R. AG -v- Kearns 1998/38 AG -v- Whiteman [2004] JRC 146 R -v- Miller (David) [2010] EWCA Crim 257 Oeillet -v- AG [2013] JRC 083 AG -v- O'Brien [2021] JRC 272 Page Last Updated: 09 Mar 2026 BAILII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback | Donate to BAILII