Daniel has a flourishing fraud and proceeds of crime practice. He is regularly instructed in serious fraud cases, often involving substantial amounts of evidence. He is particularly adept at reading and evaluating financial evidence, often presented in electronic form.
He is regularly instructed to advise on seemingly hopeless confiscation proceedings and is often able to secure favourable results, either with no order being made or of a much lower value than sought by the prosecution. The police and CPS often attempt to avoid prosecutions and instead pursue civil recovery proceedings under POCA in the magistrates’ court. Daniel has extensive experience contesting these cases and has even secured costs against an applicant authority, which is highly unusual in such cases.
Daniel is licensed to accept Public Access instructions.
Recommendations
"A good advocate who will stand his ground against a judge."
Chambers UK 2021
“He’s very intelligent and is able to assimilate huge quantities of material.”
Chambers UK 2020
“A fierce intellect and a worthy opponent.”
Chambers UK 2019
Notable Cases
R v C (Sheffield Crown Court)
Counsel for the sole defendant in a 600,000 fraud involving multi-million pound property deals. After a three and a half week trial the defendant was ultimately acquitted of three out of six counts and received a significantly lower sentence as a result of the jury’s verdict.
R v A (Birmingham Crown Court)
Junior counsel, led in a large-scale mortgage fraud. The prosecution offered no evidence shortly before the start of the trial after expert handwriting evidence, commissioned by the defence team, was able to establish that the defendant had not signed documents that were critical evidence in the prosecution case.
R v W (Bradford Crown Court)
A multi-million pound Ponzi scheme fraud trial, lasting eight weeks. As led counsel the defence adduced evidence to establish that the defendant was in fact a victim of the fraud. In particular, evidence was called via live video link from America that established that the defendant had believed she had been investing in the scheme herself. The defendant was acquitted.
R v L (Stafford Crown Court)
Multi-million pound mortgage fraud prosecuted by a QC and junior Instructed as counsel for the first defendant after all bar one of the other defendants in the case had pleaded guilty. The defence case was that the defendant had no knowledge of the fraud and had innocently been involved in a large number of mortgage applications that were, in fact, fraudulent. The defendant was acquitted.
R v M (Derby Crown Court)
As led prosecution counsel, Daniel advised on the appropriate charges of fraud. The defendant was prosecuted for a high value fraud against local authorities and schools by bidding for contracts for bus routes when he had insufficient licences to run them all simultaneously. This was an extremely complicated case that required months in preparation. The defendant ultimately pleaded guilty shortly before the trial. Daniel, as sole counsel conducted confiscation proceedings, ensuring that the defendant was made the subject of a high value confiscation order.
R v V (Warwick Crown Court)
Led by Rex Tedd QC. The defence team successfully persuaded the prosecution to concede that the lifestyle provisions did not apply in this case. The final agreed order was for a few thousand pounds, instead of the hundreds of thousands originally sought by the Crown.
R v S (Wolverhampton Crown Court)
There was extensive legal argument in this case whether or not the proceedings had been lawfully postponed. Ultimately the order made was significantly less than that alleged in the Crown’s original application.
R v B (Birmingham Crown Court)
Privately instructed to represent lay client in 1.8m confiscation proceedings as sole junior, against QC and junior. The confiscation proceedings lasted two weeks in the Crown Court and involved hidden assets, cross border transactions and thousands of pages of evidence.
MOD Police v A (Stafford Magistrates’ Court)
Instructed by MOD Police to make an application to recover property seized as part of a criminal fraud investigation. The defendant was acquitted and these proceedings followed on from the case, as the police contested the provenance of the cash seized.
HM Revenue and Customs v A (Trafford Magistrates’ Court)
Successfully opposed an application to forfeit over 200,000 in cash seized by HM Revenue and Customs in Proceeds of Crime Act civil recovery proceedings. Significantly, the client was also awarded all of his costs.
Memberships
Criminal Bar Association
Midland Circuit
Middle Temple
Qualifications
BVC and PgDL from the College of Law, London
Harmsworth Major Scholar (Middle Temple)
MSci and BSc 2:1 (Hons) in Chemistry from University College London
