Brian Reece

Cases

Criminal Defence

R v G – Leading for defence in one of a series of trials involving use of shotguns and machetes by rival drug gangs in Bedford. JG was the only defendant acquitted on judge’s direction.

R v M – Leading for defence of man accused of operating the computer system used to create, organise and operate the Blue Turtle network (a large-scale business distributing  recreational drugs to customers all over the South-East, including to celebrities and premier league footballers, with drugs sometimes delivered directly into clubs and restaurants)

R v B  –  Secured acquittal for one of two men accused of being property developers involved together in a conspiracy to acquire the £1m estate of a famous actress once described as Britain’s Brigitte Bardot. Application to dismiss charges and submission of no case to answer should not have been opposed by prosecution but were; should have succeeded but did not.

R v C – Successfully argued for severance of a sex case indictment with result that a transgender man was acquitted on allegations of sexual misconduct allegedly committed 15 years apart, one as a teenage girl, one as a man.

R v A –  Represented one of seven bank employees accused of conspiracy to defraud by selling confidential details of high net worth customer accounts to online fraudsters.

R v G – Operation Vaulter : Represented the only one out of 20 defendants who was not convicted in one of HMRC’s largest MTIC prosecutions.

R v S – Secured acquittal for one of two Albanians accused of importing £8m worth of cocaine via the Channel Tunnel in a specially adapted Mercedes ML.

R v A and others –  (The Dale Cregan murder case) : Represented one of Cregan’s associates who was convicted after a five month trial of being party to the murder of DS.

R v K – Leading in £4m benefit / immigration fraud trial.

R v G = Leading in murder case where DG killed his wife with a WW1 bayonet from his extensive collection of memorabilia and relied on provocation in the hope of a manslaughter verdict.

R v R – Represented major South London gangster, whose team was infiltrated by undercover police who were able to watch every stage of a series of large scale importations of cannabis from Morocco

R v H  – Leading in Trading Standards ‘Time Share’ fraud in which all defendants were acquitted.

R v P – Sole counsel in one defendant murder case prosecuted by QC and Senior Treasury Counsel in front of Old Bailey judge sitting at Kingston.

R v W : R v C : Junior counsel for the defence of high profile criminals who were later to take part in Brinks Mat robbery and Hatton Garden heist respectively

Criminal Prosecution

R v D and others – Leading in prosecution of four defendants for conspiracy to murder and one of them for attempted murder, in a case where RH was paid to kill a member of D’s family so that D could inherit his mother’s house.

R v C – female teacher who pleaded guilty to 5 counts involving sexual activity with a male pupil.

R v P – attempting to prosecute for historic sex offences a member of staff at a school for children who were deaf and additionally disadvantaged – proceedings which involved questions being relayed to and from the witnesses via two different sign-language interpreters, but which ultimately became impossible to conclude.

R v A and others – Prosecuted four Asian men who travelled in a three-car convoy to a secluded cricket ground where they were alleged to have test-fired the converted machine gun that was recovered when they were intercepted.

R v A  and others – Leading in series of money laundering trials with a total of 19 defendants, which involved tracing the proceeds of cheques stolen by postmen in London, Canada and USA, and the linked online frauds revealed. All sentence appeals unsuccessful – see R v Olarinoye.

R v P – 16 year old accused of attempted murder by shooting man in dispute over drugs. Between trial and retrial obtained evidence from recorded phone calls which led to plea to s.18 alternative.

R v O and others – Leading for prosecution in series of trials lasting 6 months with a total of 27 defendants involving the dishonest manipulation by ticket-office staff of Oyster Card system (Operation Lothian and Operation Narvick)

R v W – Prosecuting 39-year-old for sex offences committed against his sisters when he was aged 10 – 14 and they were aged between 6 and 12. Successfully resisted appeal against conviction based on steps taken to deal with issues presented by vulnerable witnesses.

R v M and others – Prosecuting organised criminal network responsible for at least 30 high-value house burglaries in two-month spell. Main defendant was just out of prison following sentence for identical course of conduct. Father / father figure was tried in absence and sentenced to 8 years.

R v R  and others – Leading for prosecution in trial involving firearms, including one of only 3 TEC-9 machine guns by then recovered in the UK.

R v S – Leading for prosecution in trial of leader of gang planning to rape two Lithuanian girls before selling them into a life of forced prostitution. Successfully argued for introduction of evidence of previous rape acquittal and previous untried rape allegation, leading to 14½   year sentence.

R v A and others – Leading in case involving trafficking from Romania, forced prostitution, frequent rape of two victims, and the systematic laundering of the cash proceeds of prostitution, leading to 21 year sentence.
R v M – Advised on and then conducted one of the first cases of sex offending abroad, in which a UK national had filmed himself raping small girls, some of whom could not be identified by name but all of whom were clearly much younger than 13. A life sentence was imposed following a guilty plea.

R v G : Leading in case of a violent serial rapist who attacked four different women on the street late at night. Life sentence imposed following conviction on all counts.

R v T  and others – Leading in case in which three men were accused of drugging and raping a 17-year old girl. Part of the incident was filmed on mobile telephones (but not the part where the victim was penetrated with the handle of a sledgehammer)

R v E  and others – In which two girls in their late teens took revenge on another by dragging her into a park where she was stripped and filmed being forced to give oral sex to a series of strangers, before being taken back to a house and raped.

R v A and others : Leading for prosecution in separate trials where a group of five men were together as one of their number selected a drunken victim and took her back to a North London flat where he raped her, and the other four selected a different victim nearby three hours later and took her back to a different flat where she was gang-raped.

R v G : Junior in case where G ultimately pleaded guilty to twice attempting to murder his wife and baby son by setting fire to their house at night; having failed in his first attempt he tried again using a staged road accident in order to set fire to the car they were to have been trapped in.