ANNEX B: OVERVIEW OF THE CONFISCATION PROCESS UNDER POCA 1. Confiscation 1.5. Criminal conduct General Criminal Conduct
“General criminal conduct” means the defendant’s criminal conduct, whenever the conduct occurred and whether or not it has ever formed the subject of any criminal prosecution. “General criminal conduct” therefore would include any “particular criminal conduct”. This regime depends on the concept of “criminal lifestyle”. The court must apply the assumptions to all of the defendant’s income and expenditure in the previous six years if the court decides the defendant’s benefit to be from general criminal conduct.
The following assumptions may be applied, unless it is found to be incorrect or there is a serious risk of injustice:
	that any property transferred to the defendant at any time after the relevant date,
	any property held by the defendant at any time after conviction,
	any expenditure incurred by the defendant after the relevant date, for instance luxury holidays,
is tainted or obtained by criminality
	and the defendant obtained the property free from any other interests.
If the prosecution is alleging general criminal conduct, it is suggesting that the defendant has been a career criminal and that assets obtained or enjoyed by him or her are tainted or obtained by criminality.
Section 75 of POCA sets out a number of tests that are applied. A person has a criminal lifestyle if one or more tests are met, including whether the defendant has committed specific offences under Schedule 2 to POCA (for example, drug trafficking).
It is assumed that the defendant’s entire income over the previous six years represents the proceeds of crime. With general, or “lifestyle” offences, the prosecution can look at a defendant’s benefit for a period going back six years from the “relevant date”. The relevant date is the day when the proceedings started, usually the date of charge.