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E:
Call: 1994
Professional Membership:
Criminal Bar Association
Health and Safety Lawyers Association
Academic Background:
St. Paul’s School (Scholar)
Gonville & Caius College,
University of Cambridge – Law M.A.
Middle Temple Mooting Prize
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AREAS OF EXPERTISE
Acting for and against corporate, institutional and individual clients in both civil and criminal proceedings.
Civil practice centres on commercial contract, property and contested probate disputes, though a wide variety of other types of case are undertaken on occasion, as illustrated below.
Criminal practice centres on prosecuting and defending health and safety and allied regulatory work, though fraud, drugs and other serious criminal cases are undertaken on occasion, as illustrated below.
Member of the ‘A’ list of the Attorney-General’s Unified List of Junior Counsel for criminal cases.
Recommended by Chambers and Partners since 2006 as a specialist in Health and Safety.
CASES OF NOTE
COMMERCIAL CONTRACT:
Haller -v- Morgan Grenfell and another, 2007, Commercial Court.
Claim by a former senior executive and director against companies of the Deutsche Bank Group for loss of an alleged contractual entitlement to acquire emerging markets distressed debt assets which it was contended would have generated profits in excess of US $300 million – a 35 day trial was fixed for dozens of witnesses to give detailed evidence about events spanning more than a decade in the context of voluminous contemporaneous documentation.
Latimer Management Consultants and others -v- Ellingham Investments Limited and another [2005] EWHC 1732 (Ch), Chancery Division.
Questions of the enforceability of parol contracts allegedly lacking in valuable consideration, of collateral contracts, of estoppel, of rectification, of the liability of a shadow director and of the standing of beneficiaries under a discretionary trust to sue when the trustee declines so to do.
Adina Kohn -v- Lakshmi Mittal and Usha Mittal, 2005, Queen’s Bench Division.
Claim against the well known steel baron and his wife for a property finder’s fee alleged to be payable ad valorem on the acquisition of a multi-million pound property in Kensington Palace Gardens.
PROPERTY:
Meretz Investments N.V. and another -v- ACP Limited and others [2007] EWCA Civ 1303, Court of Appeal (Pill, Arden & Toulson L.JJ.).
Appeal from Lewison J., the issues concerned whether a guarantor should be held liable in substantial damages for loss occasioned by the exercise of a mortgagee’s power of sale and the ambit of the torts of conspiracy and inducing breach of contract in the light of the supervening House of Lords ruling in OBG v. Allan – the appeal lasted a week.
Meretz Investments N.V. and another -v- ACP Limited and others (No.2) [2007] Ch. 177; [2006] EWHC 74 (Ch), Chancery Division (Lewison J.).
One of a series of claims between various parties involved in a development of luxury penthouses in Knightsbridge; this dispute concerned whether a mortgagee had a power to sell a lease, whether by reason of previous proceedings cause of action estoppel and/or issue estoppel and/or abuse of process prohibited it from being contended that the mortgagee had no such power of sale, whether the exercise by the mortgagee of any such power to sell the lease to an associated transferee was improper, whether there were breaches of obligations to construct penthouses and to perform a lease-back option and the liability of the developer, its mortgagee, their directors and the associated transferee for alleged economic torts, principally conspiracy – the trial lasted a month.
Meretz Investments N.V. -v- ACP Limited (No.1) [2002] EWHC 1019 (QB), Queen’s Bench Division.
One of a series of claims between various parties involved in a development of luxury penthouses in Knightsbridge; this dispute concerned the liability to pay substantial commission from the proceeds of sale of a large luxury penthouse.
Jelson Limited -v- Derby City Council, [1999] 4 P.L.R., Chancery Division.
Rectification of a section 106 agreement to provide affordable housing; this was for a time the leading authority on the application of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 to section 106 agreements.
CONTESTED PROBATE:
Santarsiero and another -v- Wadwell: in re dos Santos, deceased, [2003] EWHC 194 (Ch), Chancery Division (Blackburne J.)
Alleged fraudulent procurement of letters of administration and deliberate maladministration of an intestate estate by a friend and creditor of the diseased to the detriment of his blood relations – 13 day trial.
Dunner -v- Kestenbaum and others: in re Lerner, deceased, Chancery Division (Lawrence Collins J.).
Alleged want of knowledge and approval, undue influence, lack of testamentary capacity and lack of due execution in the making of various English and foreign wills by an elderly millionaire leaving his estate to his landlady in place of his family – 20 day trial settled on day 11.
Hart -v- Dabbs and others: in re Dabbs, deceased, Court of Appeal and Chancery Division (Lloyd J.).
Alleged want of knowledge and approval by an elderly millionaire and alleged forfeiture for unlawful killing when a testator left a non-relative the bulk of his estate and died in circumstances which led a Coroner’s jury to bring in a verdict of unlawful killing – 5 day trial.
OTHER CIVIL WORK:
Besides the above areas, a wide range of other civil cases has been undertaken, especially those involving allegations of fraud, violence or other criminality. Public law cases include advising solicitors on a complex point of statutory construction of public funding regulations and judicial reviews of the Coroner for Derby and South Derbyshire, of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, of a police authority and of a well-known university. Representation of Steven Berkoff, the noted actor and playwright, in the Queen’s Bench Division before Eady J. on allegations of rape, psychiatric injury and defamation of character by a litigant in person.
HEALTH AND SAFETY AND OTHER REGULATORY OFFENDING:
R. (HSE) -v- AE & E Lentjes UK Limited and Rafako S.A., 2008, Crown Court at Maidstone.
Failures on a large construction site by the principal contractor and a specialist subcontractor to supervise and direct work at height, resulting in a worker falling 70 feet to his death.
R. (Norwich City Council) -v- Burlingham, 2008, Crown Court at Norwich.
Hotelier’s failure sufficiently to guard door to cellar stairs led to guest risking death falling down fifteen steep concrete stairs in the dark.
R. (HSE) -v- Dacorum Borough Council, 2008, Crown Court at St. Albans.
Council’s failure properly to direct and provide proper tools for work on buried services led to the death by electrocution of a maintenance man who severed mains cable.
R. (HSE) -v- First Capital East Limited, 2008, Crown Court at Croydon.
Bus company’s failure to control night-time traffic movements at busy bus garage and to supervise staff, resulting in one worker driving off a double-decker bus and running over and killing another worker who was in the middle of repairing it.
R. (HSE) -v- Easco (Midlands) Limited, 2008 Crown Court at Coventry.
Failure to control large goods vehicle reversing movements at a scrap yard, resulting in worker being run down by a reversing 12 tonne skip lorry: this was the second death within a small group of companies, occurring just 15 months after sentence at Norwich Crown Court in the prosecution arising from the first death.
R. (Stevenage Borough Council) -v- D & P Catering Equipment Limited & Greggs plc., 2008, Crown Court at Luton.
Decapitation by shrapnel from explosion during repair of bakery refrigeration equipment in high street shop.
R. (HSE) -v- Port of Tilbury Limited and Perry Glading, 2007, Croydon Crown Court.
6 year old boy killed at port in fork-lift truck accident by falling ½ tonne paper roll; port company’s managing director also prosecuted against under s.37.
R (HSE) -v- Dawson-Wam Limited, 2007, Croydon Crown Court.
Lack of safe method for deconstructing auguring equipment led to improvisation by workers and death of one when crushed by toppling 3 tonne augur bit.
R. (HSE) -v- Lyons Landfill Limited and Francis Michael Lyons, St. Albans Crown Court.
Company and sole proprietor running parallel landfill and quarrying businesses on the same site failed to control risks to visitors from overhead 33,000 volt power cables, resulting in death by electrocution of a visiting lorry driver.
R. (HSE) -v- The Produce Connection Limited, Cambridge Crown Court.
Potato harvesting company caused road death of employee who fell asleep at the wheel on the way home after being permitted to work several successive 90 hour weeks.
R. (HSE and Norfolk Fire Service) -v- Norwich School, Norwich Crown Court.
Failures by the Norwich School, a leading East Anglian private school, to take sufficient fire precautions on its premises.
R. (HSE) -v- Hampshire County Council, Winchester Crown Court.
Exposures of elderly residents in Council-run care homes to debilitating burns from unguarded central heating plant.
R. (HSE) -v- Lord Condon and Sir John Stevens, Central Criminal Court (Crane J.).
Alleged failures by the Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police to safeguard the health and safety of their constables.
R. (HSE) -v- Board of Trustees of the Natural History Museum, Blackfriars Crown Court.
Exposure of the museum-visiting public from geological exhibits to levels of radioactivity above the permitted limits.
FRAUD, DRUGS AND OTHER SERIOUS CRIME:
Prosecution and defence of conspiracies and other serious fraud and drugs cases, including allegations of the laundering of the proceeds and confiscation proceedings. Extensive work in relation to prosecuting losses of duty and VAT by reason of excise diversion and importation frauds. Other criminal cases undertaken include prosecution of a four-handed alleged rape of a victim with a history of psychiatric illness and advising a defendant on appeal in a murder raising issues of self-defence and provocation.
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