Date of Call: 2003
General crime, including fraud
Health & Safety
Trading Standards
Intellectual Property Crime
Licensing
Asset forfeiture, including confiscation, restraint and enforcement
Prison law, including adjudications and Parole Board hearings
Courts Martial
Disciplinary
Robert is on the 'C' Panel of the Attorney General's Unified List of Prosecuting Advocates.
Examples of particular experience:
-Instructed for the prosecution in a case concerning an internet-based advance fee fraud and linked money-laundering arrangements; in subsequent confiscation proceedings, a hidden assets finding was made in the sum of approximately £750,000.
-As junior: advised the Motion Picture Association in relation to copyright infringement on the internet.
-As junior: instructed in a prosecution for gross negligence manslaughter following an investigation by the Health & Safety Executive into the death of a householder from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by negligent repair work to a chimney.
-Instructed by the Office of Rail Regulation to respond in an appeal brought by -Network Rail against a decision to issue improvement notices under the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
-Instructed by RCPO in the prosecution of a multi-handed importation of cocaine from Trinidad, involving issues of PII and the disclosure of material obtained via letters of request.
-Advised a multinational operator of casinos in connection with an application for an operating licence in the UK under the Gaming Act 2005.
-Represented an appellant in the Court of Appeal in an appeal against sentence based upon disparity with a co-defendant's sentence.
-As junior: instructed by the then Assets Recovery Agency in a five-day confiscation hearing (following convictions for trading standards offences), resulting in a confiscation order in excess of £3m, the highest award ever made in England & Wales in a case concerning trading standards offences.
-Represented an applicant in the High Court in an application to vary the terms of a restraint order.
-As junior counsel: instructed in a prosecution concerning the offer of finance by means of bills of exchange, involving analysis of the little used Bills of Exchange Act 1882.
-Three months on secondment to the Revenue & Customs Prosecutions Office, with responsibility for the application for or management of over 50 restraint orders in cases involving high value tax frauds (including MTIC frauds), drug importations and other forms of smuggling.
Robert had an article published in the Solicitors' Journal (February 2007) - 'Jail term inflation and death by dangerous driving'
Robert is recommended as a leading junior for Licensing in Legal 500.