Practice Areas
Tim is highly experienced in the prosecution and defence of cases of homicide, sexual assault, large-scale drug trafficking, serious organised crime, corruption, money laundering and complex fraud (including international carousel, direct and indirect tax, duty evasion, pensions liberation, organised benefit and NHS medical fraud, and the exploitation of Hawala banking and cryptocurrency systems).
He is experienced in cases concerning the cooperation of foreign powers, including those based in offshore tax havens, and has represented the same in contested restraint order applications. He is well-versed in large-scale confiscation proceedings, in particular those involving jointly owned property, sham trusts, piercing the corporate veil and the use of off-shore company and trust jurisdictions.
He is known for his quick ability to master difficult scientific and technical evidence, and to cut through masses of disordered material to identify the real issues and to present them clearly. He has particular expertise in large e-disclosure exercises, involving legal professional privilege, public interest immunity, the Investigatory Powers Act, and abuse of process, from the perspectives of both prosecution and defence. He has acted as independent counsel during the execution of search warrants.
Since taking silk, in addition to his fraud and organised crime practice, he regularly prosecutes and defends cases of homicide and sexual offences, to which the above experience has proven to be equally applicable.
Recent Practice Detail
Financial crime
• Operation AMAZON: CPS Fraud Division Manchester; 2008 to 2020; 8 (city professionals) defendant direct tax fraud case concerning claimed reliefs on R&D into carbon credits. 80,000 pages of served evidence; 2.3 million unused documents; complex e-disclosure issues; substantive abuse of process hearings in 2013 and 2014; over 25 detailed trial management hearings and successful appeal against terminating ruling in 2015; The largest HMRC direct tax fraud prosecuted to date, and the leading case on disclosure in large document cases: R. v. R [2015] EWCA Crim 1941. The evidence at trial and the contested confiscation hearings and enforcement of the orders involved the operation of off-shore corporate, banking and tax structures in tax havens around the world.
• Operation SECONDMENT: CPS OCD Birmingham; 2013 - 2015; 4 defendant conspiracy to produce £1.3 m in exceptional quality counterfeit £10 notes; 5 week trial; confiscation and SCPOs; appeal against confiscation orders. Late return, complex expert evidence on all aspects of printing, cell-site analysis and computer analysis.
• Operation RED WEZEN: SEOCID Manchester; 2020 to 2023; complex chargeback fraud.
• Operation BIDDER: CPS SEOCID Manchester; 2020 to 2024; large scale duty evasion fraud.
• Operation YULAN: CPS SEOCID Manchester; 2020 to date; massive pensions liberation fraud. Convictions of three defendants charged with cheating the public revenue and defrauding pensioners, following an eight month trial in 2025. The case involved millions of pounds and an enormous amount of complex documentation designed to obscure the truth behind a deliberately confusing façade including the hijacking of an obsolete but FCA-registered Friendly Society.
• Operation SASSAK: CPS SEOCID Birmingham: 2020 to date; corruption of the employee of an international transportation and haulage company; trial in 2027.
Drugs and Serious Organised Crime
• Operation SABRE: CPS OCD Birmingham – 2014 to 2016; 6 week trial; confiscation and appeal; 2 defendant conspiracy to import heroin, one of whom was a litigant in person.
• Operation BREAD: CPS OCD Manchester; 2009 to 2017; two indictments: 7 defendant heroin supply conspiracy and a 2 defendant possession of a prohibited firearm; 5 week trial; contested confiscation proceedings and appeals against conviction. Difficult legal argument on the admissibility of contemporaneous notes kept by one defendant as evidence of the involvement of his co-accused.
• Operation ABSOLVER: CPS OCD Birmingham; 2015 to 2019; 3 month trial; 8 defendant conspiracy to import and supply heroin; appeal against conviction; a contrived and organised defence, undone by the last minute decryption of a PGP Blackberry over which PII was successfully sought concerning the manner in which the relevant codes had been cracked. Complex expert cell-site and other scientific evidence.
• Operation ORLANDO: CPS OCD Birmingham; 2017 to 2019; 4 defendants; massive conspiracy to import and supply class A drugs. Exceptional in size and complexity, involving the amalgamation of four historic investigations conducted by different law enforcement agencies in order to target the ‘king pins’ who had been behind those earlier conspiracies. Over 100,000 pages of evidence. Difficult abuse of process and sensitive disclosure issues, including the appointment of Special Counsel.
• Operation TREASURER: CPS Birmingham; 2019; 6 defendant handling conspiracy ; complex car-ringing case; 200 high-end vehicles worth over £2,000,000. A rigorous analysis of the evidence and a restructuring of the case provoked guilty pleas from all defendants, including from one at trial. PII successfully sought over elements of the expert evidence in the case.
• Operation VENETIC: 2020 – 2021; CPS POCU; Advising nationally on complex restraint proceedings in Encrochat cases.
Murder and Manslaughter
• Operation FANTAIL: Defending; 2019; murder – death by arson.
• Operation KARENGO: Defending; 2019-2020; murder and rape; Successfully secured an exceptional nine year reduction to the mandatory minimum prison term of 30 years after guilty pleas to murder, vaginal rape and anal rape.
• R. v. K: Prosecuting; 2020; attempted murder of wife and baby whilst under the influence of drugs leading to a psychotic episode, raising issues of the defence of insanity.
• Operation MERTLE: Defending; 2020; murder of a child by a child, requiring the close analysis of CCTV evidence.
• Operation MUIR: Prosecuting; 2021; drug-related murder raising issues of epilepsy and the defence of automatism.
• Operation BIANOR: Defending; 2021 to 2022; initially a missing-body murder of wife by husband; complex archaeological, scientific, cell site and CCTV evidence. Cross-examination of the prosecution data analyst based on a careful analysis of CCTV and other timing issues destroyed the Crown’s Sequence of Events.
• Operation DINAR: Defending; 2021 to 2022; murder committed in 1982 of the defendant’s wife, remains being found in the septic tank of their former home; defendant was 89 at trial; requiring careful analysis of old, incomplete evidence and raising issues of fitness to plead and the proper treatment of an elderly vulnerable defendant.
• Operation EIDER: Defending; 2022 to 2023; joint enterprise murder involving 5 child defendants and the careful analysis of CCTV evidence.
• Operation CONTIGO: Defending; 2022 to 2023; joint enterprise execution murder and attempted murder. Careful cross-examination of the CCTV analyst undermined the evidence of identification.
• Operation CORINTHIAN: Prosecuting; 2022 to 2023; joint enterprise attack involving three defendants killing a man in the garden of his home. Difficult issues of pathology and causation.
• Operation HYDRAK: Defending; 2023; joint enterprise murder involving 4 young defendants.
• Operation PROPARD: Prosecuting; 2024; murder; the only eye witnesses were the defendants themselves. Victim was a 16 year old boy with gang affiliations, whom the defendants stabbed in a flat used as a crack den. Both defendants convicted of murder.
• Operation ALZARINE: Prosecuting: 2025; manslaughter; defendant and partner injecting each other with heroin leading to the death of the girlfriend.
Sexual Assault
• R. v. J: Defending: 2021; rape of two complainants; detailed analysis of social media and issues of consent in the context of relationships involving mutual enjoyment of sadomasochistic practices.
• Operation BEAM: Defending; 2021 to 2022; multi-handed grooming, rape and penetrative sexual assaults of children indictment. Analysis of unused material and careful section 8 applications resulted in a confession by the disclosure officer that they had been prevailed upon by senior officers to make misleading statements about disclosure; the prosecution offered no evidence during abuse of process proceedings.
• Operation BOOKBINDER: Defending; 2024; arranging or facilitating transport of (then) minors with a view to sexual exploitation. By focussed pre-trial disclosure applications made over several months, Tim identified significant material that suggested that allegations may be motivated out of a desire by complainants to obtain police assistance in moving to better local authority accommodation, and that such assistance had been provided. This material had originally been extensively redacted in manner which concealed much of what was relevant.
Tim also identified material that showed that, far from having been corrupted by the Afghan defendants as the prosecution claimed, the complainants had previously been associated with groups of western descent.
Tim exposed fundamental failures in the prosecution disclosure process leading to the first trial listing in 2023 being abandoned, the prosecution conceding that no CPIA-compliant review had taken place but was necessary, following which many thousands of pages of relevant material were ultimately disclosed.
His client was acquitted of all charges.
