Commentary on Sections Interpretation Sections 225 & 226: Tainted gifts; Gifts and their recipients
280.The existing legislation enables gifts by the defendant to other persons to be recovered in satisfaction of a confiscation order, and makes ancillary provision (for example, to enable assets of the recipient of a gift to be placed under restraint). Under the existing legislation in Northern Ireland, a tainted gift is described as a “gift caught by this Order”. Section 225 aligns the different tainted gift schemes which currently apply depending on whether the offence was drug related or not. The new scheme provides that, where the court has decided that the defendant has a criminal lifestyle, any gift made by the defendant to any person in the period beginning six years before the commencement of proceedings will be caught, together with any gift at any time out of the proceeds of crime. This definition will be relevant both at the confiscation hearing and for the purposes of enforcement. However, if the court decides that the defendant does not have a criminal lifestyle, only gifts made since the beginning of the earliest of the offences committed are caught. Again, this will be relevant at the confiscation hearing and for the purposes of enforcement. The provision is drafted so that it will apply in Northern Ireland as the similar provisions in Part 2 apply in England and Wales.