Call:1996
Qualifications: BA (Hons)
Practice Teams
Asset Forfeiture
Civil & Commercial
Criminal
Property
John LawPrint CV
Profile
John has practised from chambers since 1997 and having acquired a broad background in both criminal and civil litigation he now has developed a particular expertise and reputation in the specialist area of asset forfeiture and confiscation work. He has been appointed to the "B" Panel of the Attorney General's List of Prosecution Advocates.
John is instructed in this areas by clients including the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office (RCPO), HM Revenue and Customs, SFO, Department of Health and Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). His experience in the developing area of asset forfeiture includes:
- money laundering cases
- restraint and receivership orders
- confiscation proceedings and enforcement
- cash detention and forfeiture
- civil recovery orders and freezing injunctions (often urgent, without notice international jurisdiction orders)
The nature of the work has meant regular appearances in the Administrative Court and in addition John has acted as junior counsel in two multi-million pound mediations on behalf of the Assets Recovery Agency (ARA - now subsumed into SOCA) . In criminal prosecutions he has acted in serious drug trafficking and excise cases, money laundering and large scale MTIC cases and has defended to all levels of offence including murder. In conducting cash detention work under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 John has obtained forfeiture orders for HMRC totalling millions of pounds and is asked to advise in the most complex and sensitive cases.
As editor of the new periodical journal The Proceeds of Crime Review John devised a flowchart on cash detention proceedings for the first edition as well as writing an article on the nature of proof in asset forfeiture cases – Proving the Unknown.
John has experience over a number of years in giving lectures to solicitors, university students and colleagues in proceeds of crime, landlord and tenant, employment and copyright. and he accepts instructions under the Bar Council’s Public Access Scheme.
Examples of recent work include:
- Junior counsel in high profile confiscation enforcement proceedings against convicted MTIC fraudsters (current)
- Advising a non-domiciled client owner of substantial property caught under a worldwide restraint order obtained by a foreign government (current)
- Counsel for the Serious and Organised Crime Agency in civil recovery claim with international aspects (current)
- Prosecuting a serious case involving unlicensed healthcare products administered as beauty products (current)
- Director of Assets Recovery Agency v Creaven & othrs (2005) QBD (Admin) (Stanley Burnton J) Times, November 16 - release of funds from interim freezing order to meet legal expenses in civil recovery proceedings. Junior counsel in this civil recovery claim following MTIC fraud prosecution that was settled in a pioneering mediation with a recovery of £18 million (2006)
- Junior counsel in multi-million pound civil claim in High Court arising from MTIC fraud (2005-2007)
- Re P (2005) QBD (Admin) (Moses J) international freezing injunction in civil recovery case against Russian schoolgirl
- R v Rice (2005) Winchester CC - murder - sentencing provisions of CJA 2003 fixing minimum term in well-publicised case often cited in early release debate
- R v Simpson (2004) QB 118 CA – Defects in notice under CJA did not deprive judge of jurisdiction to make confiscation order. Scope of Stare decisis doctrine
- In Re X (2005) QB 133 – Court’s jurisdiction to vary a restraint order under CJA 1988 s.77 to allow payment of third party debts
- Member of HM Revenue and Customs MTIC disclosure committee in Operation Chipstick (R v Creaven and others) then the largest MTIC fraud prosecution (2003-2004)
- Re Turner (2003) Admin Court – Certificates of inadequacy where hidden assets
Appointments
"B" Panel on Attorney General’s Unified List of Prosecution Advocates (2006 - date)
Professional Associations
Criminal Bar Association
Fraud Advisory Panel
Proceeds of Crime Lawyers Association