Profile description
Asset Recovery, Civil Fraud & Confiscation
David maintains a strong practice in the parallel criminal and civil jurisdictions under POCA and its predecessors. He is regularly instructed by the police, HMRC and NCA in civil cash detention and forfeiture hearings and appeals, and is also experienced in advising and acting in restraint proceedings and applications for civil freezing injunctions.
David has a wide experience of confiscation proceedings after conviction and is often instructed specifically for the confiscation stage of a case. He is currently instructed in several large scale confiscation proceedings, including a multi-handed £5m case arising out of the importation of half a ton of heroin, and a £2m benefits fraud confiscation case involving live-link evidence from Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
David has huge experience of acting both alone and as led junior in all types of government fiscal fraud cases, including tax, VAT and Excise fraud. He is comfortable in document-heavy, legally complex cases and where carefully managed disclosure becomes a key issue. In 2010-2011, David and a colleague were jointly instructed by the CPS to review and report on HMRC’s disclosure systems in large scale Excise fraud. Since then he has been regularly instructed in a numerous cases in which the loss to the Revenue has been in the millions of pounds.
He carries out Tax Tribunal work and was instructed in 2013 as led junior for HMRC in a £6m MTIC appeal.
David is regularly instructed on all types of benefit fraud cases prosecuted both by the DWP and local authorities and is particularly experienced in cases of multiple identities and organised conspiracies to defraud.
David’s fraud practice is not limited to frauds on the Revenue. Recent instructions include defending a convicted fraudster at the confiscation stage where the Crown sought £9m and the case centred on funds restrained in Pakistan, and led junior prosecution counsel in the UK’s first land banking fraud.
The mainstay of David’s civil practice has always been in litigation involving small and medium sized businesses. He is regularly instructed to advise and act in commercial contractual disputes, especially involving professional services and negligence claims – cases in which he has been instructed have concerned engineers, builders, architects, financial advisors and consultants, solicitors and accountants. He has recently been instructed not only in first instance trials but also in appeals from the County Court, High Court applications for security for costs and freezing orders, abuse of process applications and Companies Court applications before registrars and judges.
David is also experienced in consumer law, acting both for the consumer and provider in cases turning on misrepresentation, breaches of implied terms, penalty charges and unfair terms legislation.
Chancery & Company
From his days as a pupil in chambers, David has developed a specialist practice in traditional Chancery litigation, particularly in land law and probate. He has advised on and conducted trials of boundary disputes, private nuisance, disputed rights of way, parking rights, rights to light and other easements. In probate, although he advises on the administration of estates generally, he has specialist experience of acting in claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, both in court and at mediation hearings.
David prosecutes and defends in a wide range of serious cases, specialising in organised and complex crime. He has been led in cases involving VAT fraud, tobacco and alcohol excise fraud, MTIC fraud and very large scale confidence fraud. Acting alone, he has conducted trials for the production, supply and importation of Class A drugs and importation, serious fraud, money laundering, GBH, kidnapping, immigration offences and serious sexual offences.
David advises on and acts in cases involving sensitive intelligence, PII issues and very complex disclosure tasks. He particularly enjoys cases that raise interesting and novel points of law. On the prosecution side, he is experienced in leading case teams of lawyers and officers and advising from an early stage.
David accepts private and direct access instructions in criminal cases where appropriate, and has a particular expertise in road traffic law.
Having previously prosecuted Customs, Revenue and DWP cases as counsel on the Attorney-General’s List, David is now a Grade 3 CPS prosecutor, on the Organised Crime, Fraud and Proceeds of Crime panels, and is a Grade B prosecutor for the Serious Fraud Office.
David also accepts Judicial Review and Public Law instructions.
Personal Injury & Professional Negligence
David’s personal injury practice, as well as advising on liability and quantum and conducting trials and disposal hearings, has included several claims involving interesting points of law, including claims under the Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 1930, a claim by a security contractor injured on duty in Iraq and claims by users of rights of way over railways.
Planning, Property, Landlord & Tenant
David has always maintained a distinct property law practice, mainly dealing with business property in the context of commercial disputes. However, he accepts landlord and tenant instructions and has particular experience in dealing with neighbour and boundary disputes.
Professional Discipline & Regulatory
Local Government
David is regularly instructed by several London borough councils to prosecute environmental, trading standards, food hygiene and other regulatory cases, both in the magistrates’ and Crown Courts. He also advises on difficult points of regulatory and administrative law for local authorities and the police, as well as how to achieve policy aims through targeted and effective prosecutions. David has particular experience of prosecuting illegal money-lenders, from the pre-charge advisory stage to post-conviction confiscation proceedings.
Health & Safety
David accepts instructions for both sides in health & safety cases. In 2013 he was instructed as junior counsel to prosecute the organisers of the London Triathlon for failing to prevent the death of a spectator in 2009, a case in which the main defendant company received a fine of £300,000.
More recently he defended alone in a fire safety prosecution in which he secured the acquittal of one of his clients of all charges arising from an investigation into a north London restaurant.
Medical and Healthcare Regulation
David has a wide experience in Tribunal work, civil and criminal fraud of all types, and in dealing with expert medical evidence both in civil and criminal proceedings. He accepts instructions from both prosecuting agencies and from health professionals appearing before in Tribunals.
Financial Regulation
David’s criminal and civil fraud experience has led to him being instructed by central government bodies such as BIS to deal with insolvency and directors’ disqualification cases. He has worked with the FSA (now the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)) and continues to accept instructions both from regulatory bodies and from defendants in Tribunals.
