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Richard Pratt Q.C

commercial criminal fraud, serious crime

YEAR OF CALL: 1980 England and Wales

rpratt@lombardchambers.com
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Mainly practising on the Northern Circuit, Richard has both prosecuted and defended the most serious criminal allegations.

As a junior from the late 1990’s to his appointment to Silk in 2006, he was involved for the defence in most of the massive drug conspiracy cases in Liverpool Crown Court, including Operations Lincoln, Top, Kingsway, Ruin, Ayres Rock, Dolphin, Montrose, Actinium.

Richard also sits as a Recorder.

  • Between 1998-2000 Richard represented a defendant in the case of R.v C which involved allegations of fraud by senior officials employed by Cheshire County Council. At the time it was described as the largest investigation ever undertaken by Cheshire Constabulary. Other fraud work included R.v Y (2000) a large scale housing benefit fraud, the red diesel fraud codenamed Operation Joyless (2003), and the smuggling and money laundering case Operation Emitted (2003).
  • Following his appointment to the Attorney General’s ‘A’ list, he was junior Counsel to the Crown in the MTIC fraud Operation V959 and took over the leading brief when the case was listed for re-trial. Between 2004-2006 he prosecuted (as leading Counsel) three large scale income tax evasions with associated confiscation proceedings. Upon taking Silk he was obliged to relinquish this appointment.
  • He has appeared for the Prosecution and the Defence in several homicide cases over the years, both as a junior and in silk. In 2005 he was junior to the Crown in the high profile case of R.v. B which involved an 18 year old student killing both his parents. In the same year, in the Isle of Man together with local advocate Dawn Jones, he represented the owner of “The Solway Harvester” on seven counts of gross negligence manslaughter of the crew of the vessel who drowned when it capsized in the Irish Sea. The case involved technical evidence of the most complex kind and legal argument as to the relationship between the law of homicide in England and Wales and the Isle of Man.
  • In 2000, Richard appeared as junior counsel in the House of Lords in the (then) landmark case of R.v. Morgan Smith which developed the defence of provocation.
  • Since taking Silk, he prosecuted the multi-million money laundering case of Operation Gelling in Manchester Crown Court, defended (again in Manchester) one of three charged in a £3m money laundering which lasted for 2 months in 2009 (Operation Echogramme) and was instructed for the first-named defendant in Operation Savannah (fuel fraud) heard in Leeds Crown Court in October 2009 , and for the prosecution in the money laundering case of Operation Jundial. In January 2012 he is instructed to represent a defendant in Operation Vex in Kingston Crown Court.
  • As a QC, Richard has continued to be involved in cases of murder and manslaughter. These have included allegations of domestic killings, shaken baby syndrome - with controversial and complex expert evidence-gangland ‘contract execution’, and homophobic killing. In 2008, he represented the teenager SM, who was convicted of the murder of schoolboy Rhys Jones, in a case which involved ground-breaking applications as to bad character and hearsay. In January 2010, he was instructed to act for one of ten defendants charged with the murder of a 16 year old cadet in Liverpool Crown Court and later in the same year was involved in three homicide cases ( in Liverpool and Manchester) in which the issue was medical causation.
  • Other non-homicide cases in which he has been involved include kidnapping, very serious sexual offences and corruption in public office.
  • He is authorised to sit as a Recorder in both the Crown and County Court and has recently been approved to try rape and serious sex cases.

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