Richard Bendall

Richard Bendall was called to the Bar in 1979 and for the majority of his career has undertaken a very varied spread of common law and criminal work in common law chambers. More recently, his practice has become almost exclusively criminal, and he joined Furnival Chambers in 2010.

He both prosecutes and defends equally and has appeared, usually as lead counsel, in a long series of serious cases involving homicide, violence, sexual allegations, drug supply, money laundering and fraud. He is very experienced in cases involving every conceivable aspect of alleged dishonest behaviour including embezzlement, bribery and corruption.

He has undertaken Courts Martial cases involving fatalities in Germany, Kosovo and Belize.

He has a very good reputation for arguing technical points of law in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal and has appeared in numerous cases in the law reports.

His very broad experience of quasi-criminal matters has included police disciplinary work and inquests. Because he has spent over 30 years arguing all manner of cases involving virtually every aspect of commercial and property law, he is, unlike many criminal counsel, un-phased by criminal prosecutions involving difficult areas such as equitable interests in jointly owned property, company law, directors’ responsibilities, bankruptcy, insolvency and trusts.

Recent interesting cases

2016-2023 He represented a lawyer accused of a multi-million dollar conspiracy to defraud in the longest running criminal trial ever held in the world: R v Michael Misick & ors. It also involved allegations of conspiracy to bribe the then Premier and several cabinet ministers of the government of the Turks & Caicos Islands, BWI. Unfortunately after over 5 years the trial judge died and a series of re-trials is still underway.

R v Daniel Elliott (2015) Successfully prosecuting campaign of rape trial entirely based on circumstantial evidence including cell site; fibre evidence; mixed profile DNA etc

R v Louis Swebweze (2015) Successfully prosecuting serious kidnap for ransom trial based entirely on circumstantial evidence including cell site.

R v Khan & ors (2015) Successfully prosecuting 5 handed conspiracy to steal high value cars case with losses in excess of £3/4M.

R v Rifat Abazi & ors (2015) Successfully prosecuting 4 handed conspiracy to supply crack cocaine case

R v C (2014) Historic rape case involving allegations going back to the 1970s.

R v M-L (2014) Defending allegations of rape and sexual assault on 5 members of defendant’s own family.

R v Kansara & Coni (2014) Successfully prosecuting bank fraud case tried at Old Bailey

R v Millwood & Burke (2014) Successfully prosecuting importation of £1/4M worth of crack cocaine

R v Silva & ors (2014) Successfully prosecuting 3 handed arson case based on circumstantial evidence including cell site, podiatry (gate) evidence, etc

Memberships

Turks & Caicos Bar (British West Indies) since 1983.

CBA