Martin Pinfold joined chambers in 2003 having been employed by the Serious Fraud Office for over 10 years where he had been responsible for the investigation and prosecution of a large number of serious frauds with a combined value in excess of £100 million. Having enjoyed great success at the SFO, both in terms of successful prosecutions and recovery of the proceeds of crime, he moved to 9, Gough Square in order to widen his experience of serious crime and to become more actively involved in the presentation of cases.
Since joining Chambers he has continued to be involved in cases of serious financial crime having been instructed by, amongst others, the SFO, the Fraud Prosecution Service, the CPS (at branch level), the Ministry of Defence, DWP and HMRC.
Within the last 12 months he has continued to work on the confiscation proceedings against 2 former accountants (SFO v Gangar and White) who were convicted after a lengthy trial, in which he acted, of a £100 million Ponzi fraud, he has also been instructed to prosecute another accountant accused of stealing in excess of £500,000 from the fellow partners of his firm and has appeared in the Court of Appeal to resist the challenge to a confiscation order that was made on the conviction of a defendant for an extensive advance fee fraud (R v Tasie). In addition, he has prosecuted 3 defendants charged with a conspiracy to steal high value goods from delivery vans in Central London over a period of 18 months (R v Hardie & others) and has been instructed to prosecute a linked Defendant charged with handling stolen goods valued in excess of £1.5 million. He has recently completed the successful prosecution of a defendant charged with using a false identity to obtain employment and mortgage advances with a value in excess of £500,000 (R v Adaramajah).
In addition to his work on financial crime, he has expanded his experience of serious crime by dealing with criminal cases across the spectrum, in particular, cases of drug supply and serious violence. Over the last 12 months he has prosecuted a number of firearms cases (inc. R v Morrison, R v Ghunney and R v Rugless). Most recently, he was instructed by CPS Central Casework to prosecute a defendant charged with conspiracy to commit armed robbery which resulted in a lengthy custodial sentence (R v Mitchell). He has prosecuted, as leading counsel, a case of large scale cannabis cultivation involving 6 defendants (Pham & others) as well as representing both prosecution and defence in cases of large scale drug supply. Earlier this year he prosecuted 3 defendants charged with a sex trafficking conspiracy (R v Radu & others).
His defence work has included a number of cases of drug supply, serious violence, kidnapping, false imprisonment and rape.
He now has the experience of appearing, for both prosecution and defence, in over 200 trials in the Crown Court as well as regularly appearing in the Court of Appeal.
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