Specialist practice areas: Serious & Complex Crime, Fraud, Regulatory Proceedings (Professional Misconduct) and Police Disciplinary.
Since joining chambers as a first-six pupil in 2006 Ben has developed a busy and successful defence practice at every level of the criminal justice system. Whilst specialising in serious crime Ben also has experience practising in regulatory and disciplinary proceedings (professional misconduct). For a number of successive years now, Ben has re-attained his ranking in the field of serious crime both in the Legal 500 directory and in Chambers & Partners.
Ben has successfully defended his clients in matters ranging from murder and serious violence to organised crime, drug importation, money laundering, firearms, complex fraud and sexual offences and has successfully appealed against wrongful convictions (e.g. R. v. Hamilton & 41 others [2021] EWCA Crim 577) and excessive sentences (e.g. R. v. Malin (Sadiq) [2014] EWCA Crim 1651).
Last year, Ben represented Dawn O’Connell, a deceased former post master, in the Post Office/Horizon appeals. The injustice suffered by Miss O’Connell and others was so egregious that their case garnered interest and support from the national media and Members of Parliament. Miss O’Connell’s wrongful conviction was posthumously overturned as an abuse of the court’s process
As junior counsel, Ben continues to appear regularly in homicide cases. In early 2020, Ben represented a young defendant who was acquitted of murder following an armed altercation on a busy London housing estate. Typically, the case involved technical evidence alongside emotive eye witness testimony.
In another example, Ben was led by Queen’s Counsel at the Central Criminal Court in a multi-handed gang-related murder trial in which his client was acquitted by the jury. The case involved extensive legal argument around changing areas of law such as the admissibility of evidence relating to gang membership as well as the doctrine of joint enterprise. In 2019 at the CCC, Ben represented a 17-year-old who was tried for the murder of another teenager. Similarly, in 2021, Ben was instructed in two lengthy murder trials.
Also, at the CCC in 2019, Ben represented one of three prison officers charged with gross negligence manslaughter following the suicide of a prisoner at HMP Downview. The trial attracted national media interest and resulted in the acquittal of the officers by the jury.
R v Nana Oppong (2024) This case involved a shooting murder which was described as an execution. Both the victim and the defendant were shown to be serious, organised criminals. The victim was shot repeatedly as he left a party in the early hours. Three vehicles and at least 6 individuals were identified as being involved. The defendant was extradited back to the UK having been found hidden in a vehicle in Morocco. The investigation was extensive, sophisticated and lasted for 3 years. The trial was presided over by a High Court judge, and the evidence included Encrochat streams, cell-site analysis, ballistics, pathology and social media downloads. News story here
Telecommunications experts were instructed by all parties to the case.
R v Amraj Poonia (2023) This was a highly unusual murder trial in which concerted efforts had been made to dispose of and conceal the deceased’s body. Had it not been for the unsolicited confession of one of the conspirators, it is likely the body would have remained undetected. The concealment and disposal of the body significantly hampered the police investigation which remained a missing person’s search for many months. Local search efforts were organised within the community and the defendant was initially interviewed as a witness. The families of the defendants and the deceased were virtual neighbours and were well-known to each other. The impact on the family of the deceased was grievous. The case involved experts in pathology, anthropology, and cell-site technology. Our client was acquitted of murder (and manslaughter) but convicted of perverting the course of justice for his part in the disposal of the body. News story here
Ben has successfully defended many clients charged with robbery at every level of the scale ranging from street muggings to armed cash-in-transits. While still a pupil at chambers, Ben appeared as stand-in junior counsel in the trial of the largest armed robbery in British history (the Securitas Depository in Tonbridge) as well as in the unprecedented jury-less trial of the armed robbery of the Menzies Depository at Heathrow airport.
R v Jacob Graham (2024) This case concerned the prosecution of an alleged homegrown terrorist. The young defendant was arrested and charged with preparing acts of terrorism after his house was searched and his electronic devices were interrogated. The police uncovered evidence of the defendant’s extensive research and subsequent dissemination of materials said to be useful to a terrorist. Furthermore, various precursor chemicals had been purchased by the defendant which he was said to have attempted to combine in efforts to produce homemade weapons and explosives. The defendant’s case was that his research was genuinely academic, and that his communications were part of a construct or fantasy which he had indulged online with the creation of an alternative identity. The trial heard expert evidence in explosives, ballistics, and pathogens, and remains ongoing at today’s date with leave to appeal sentence having been allowed. News story here
Ben appeared as junior counsel in the reported case of R. v. Thakrar [2009] Crim.L.R. 357, CA. In this case, the appellant’s conviction was successfully appealed on the grounds of unauthorised jury research into extraneous material.
Over the years, Ben has appeared on behalf of many defendants charged with the importation and supply of large quantities of drugs of all classes in trials which frequently involve proactive surveillance operations and expert telecommunications analysis. Similarly, Ben has successfully represented a number of alleged gang members charged with the possession of firearms and other serious and organised offending.
In 2019 at Worcester CC, Ben appeared as junior counsel in the trial of several men charged with committing a pre-planned acid attack on the young child of the first defendant. The offence and the trial garnered significant interest from the national media.
In 2021, as a leading junior, Ben successfully defended a young musician who was acquitted of Attempted Murder after a spate of tit-for-tat shootings related to the trade in illegal drugs in Harrow.
Ben has successfully defended in many fraud and dishonesty cases involving duty evasion, mortgage fraud, advance fee fraud, electronic credit diversion, car-ringing and benefit overpayment.
In 2014, Ben appeared at Swansea Crown court for the second defendant of nine charged with conspiring to defraud mobile phone customers through the sale of phoney insurance policies. The trial marked the conclusion of a five-year multi-agency investigation.
More recently, in 2015 and 2016, Ben has appeared as leading counsel in a multi-millions pound tax fraud trial at Swansea Crown court, as junior counsel in a substantial mortgage fraud trial at Winchester Crown court and an advanced fee fraud trial at Leeds Crown court. Also, appearing on his own in 2016, Ben successfully defended his client at Harrow CC in a multi-handed fraud trial concerning insiders from high street banks and fraudulently transferred electronic credits. Ben also conducted the follow-on trial at the CCC in 2017. In 2019, Ben represented the second defendant in a trial concerning the laundering of over $500,000 which had been embezzled by an employee of the high-street fashion label All Saints. Ben has appeared frequently in trials alleging large-scale VAT fraud and cheating the revenue.
In 2021, as a leading junior, Ben represented the first defendant in a trial concerning an organised crime group from south-east Asia. The group was found to be culpable for laundering the proceeds of Vietnamese-run cannabis cultivation across London and the south-east.
In 2017, Ben appeared at Nottingham Crown court in the trial of a traveller family (R v Rooney & ors), described at the time as the largest multi-agency investigation into modern day slavery or forced labour ever conducted in the UK. Multiple members of the family from Lincolnshire were tried with conspiring to require workers to perform forced or compulsory labour. At the time of conducting the trial, prosecutions under s.71 of the Coroner’s and Justice Act 2009 were relatively novel. Ben represented the wife of one of the principal defendants who, along with her sister, was one of a very small number of family members who were acquitted of all charges.
In 2018, Ben appeared on behalf of a vulnerable individual charged with the kidnap and false imprisonment of a Vietnamese cannabis grower who had been trafficked into the UK by a criminal gang. The witnesses were subject to the national referral mechanism and had been classified as victims of modern slavery.
In 2018, Ben appeared as leading counsel at Maidstone Crown court in a well-publicised case. The trial concerned allegations of Misconduct in Public Office against four security officers from the Medway Secure Training Centre in Kent (for juvenile offenders). The allegations emanated from the production and airing of a BBC1 Panorama documentary in which an undercover reporter purported to have gathered evidence of the abuse and mistreatment of trainees at the centre. Ben’s client was acquitted of all charges. Ben has also successfully defended other prison officers charged with assaults on inmates.
This is an area of practice in which Ben specializes and he has successfully defended commercial HGV and public service vehicle drivers who have been charged following tragic and fatal collisions with cyclists and pedestrians. In 2018, Ben appeared as junior to Queen’s counsel at Reading Crown court and successfully defended an HGV driver charged with causing death by dangerous driving following a collision on the M1 motorway which resulted in eight deaths and serious injury to four others. The human cost of this tragedy was without precedent in English & Welsh jurisprudence. This is a specialist area of criminal litigation in which Ben has presented training seminars and worked with a number of eminent reconstructions experts.
Ben has successfully represented nurses and other healthcare professionals at both the Nursing & Midwifery Council and the Health and Care Professions Council. Following successful hearings Ben’s clients have secured their ongoing registration and ability to practise unrestricted. Ben has also appeared at the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence Police Force (MDP HQ Wethersfield) to defend Police Federation members accused of regulatory offences.
Ben invariably enjoys an excellent relationship with his professional and lay clients and is dedicated to the fearless and tenacious defence of those he represents.
Ben is co-secretary of the pupillage committee at chambers, a member of the tenancy committee and an enthusiastic advocacy trainer both at Furnival and for the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple.
Away from the bar Ben’s passion lies in his children and other friends and family, global travel, films, literature and all competitive sports.
R v Dawn O’Connell (linked with others – the Post Office ‘Horizon’ appeals), 2021. This was an extraordinary case involving an egregious miscarriage of justice. Mrs. O’Connell, along with over 90 other postmasters and mistresses, had been convicted of false accounting in 2008. Her prosecution was predicated on balance deficits created by the Horizon accounting software in use by the PO at the time.
Mrs. O’Connell was a lady of impeccable character who was held in high regard by all those she worked with. She managed her own local post office. Her conviction ruined her life and she passed away in 2020.
A subsequent civil case exposed serious flaws in the integrity of the Horizon system as well as a pervasive attitude of non-disclosure within the Post Office prosecutions. Ultimately, after High Court findings which were highly critical of the software, its manufacturer Fujitsu and her employer, the CCRC referred Mrs. O’Connell’s conviction to the CACD. After contested submissions, the CACD posthumously quashed her conviction as an abuse of the court’s process, finding that both limbs of abuse applied to her case. Civil proceedings are still extant.
R v Nana Oppong (2022) This was a highly unusual and harrowing case in which the defendant, a man of previous good character with glowing testimonials, had attacked his mother’s partner with a baseball bat, rendering him comatose and with several fractures of the skull. The defendant was charged with attempted murder and the assault itself, committed in public and in broad daylight, was captured in its entirety by local authority CCTV.
A thorough defence investigation of the backstory, as well as the instruction of a consultant in forensic psychology, demonstrated that the defendant was suffering from PTSD and panic disorder at the time of committing the offence. The victim had a long history of abusing the defendant’s mother, much of which he and his younger siblings had witnessed.
Ultimately, the defendant pleaded guilty to a lesser offence and having served 6-7 months on remand, was released with a suspended sentence. News story here
R v Amraj Poonia & Others (2023) This was a highly unusual murder trial in which concerted efforts had been made to dispose of and conceal the deceased’s body. Had it not been for the unsolicited confession of one of the conspirators, it is likely the body would have remained undetected.
The concealment and disposal of the body significantly hampered the police investigation which remained a missing person’s search for many months. Local search efforts were organised within the community and the defendant was initially interviewed as a witness.
The families of the defendants and the deceased were virtual neighbours and were well-known to each other. The impact on the family of the deceased was grievous. The case involved experts in pathology, anthropology, and cell-site technology. Our client was acquitted of murder (and manslaughter) but convicted of perverting the course of justice for his part in the disposal of the body. News story here
