Edward Hetherington

Degree:

LLB (Hons) University of Durham. LLM Advanced Legal Practice. BVC: Northumbria University. JJ Powell Scholarship. Registered Pupil Supervisor.

Year of call and Inn:

2006; Middle Temple

Professional Membership:

Western Circuit; CBA

Email:

edward.hetherington@albionchambers.co.uk

Appointments:

Grade 4 Prosecutor; Crown Prosecution Service Advocate Panel. List B Prosecutor; Regulatory Advocates in Health & Safety and Environmental Law Panel

Specialist Areas:

Crime, including Courts Martial

Regulatory, including Health and Safety

Practice Overview:

Edd Hetherington is a specialist criminal and regulatory advocate, routinely instructed by the prosecution and defence in the most complex and serious of cases, including murder, rape, fraud, firearms and supply of controlled drugs. He is a CPS Grade 4 Panel Advocate and a member of the Regulatory Advocates Panel in Health & Safety and Environmental Law.

Recommendations:

"Mr Hetherington is outstanding and of a quality that far exceeds his call. His preparation and knowledge of the case is always seamless and his ability to digest enormous volumes of material is nothing short of awe-inspiring."
Legal 500 2021

Training:

Before coming to the Bar, Edd was a university law lecturer. He remains involved in designing and delivering bespoke lectures to groups of legal professionals and organisations. He is regularly involved in advocacy training, supporting postgraduate students at local HE institutions, and is a speaker for a national commercial professional development agency, providing accredited CPD and training to professionals from across the country.

Edd has a keen interest in the RIPA/IPA regime and has written a course which he continues to present to senior police officers and lawyers, CPS offices including CCU teams, and government lawyers and Councils nationwide. He also regularly presents a seminar on Health & Safety Law and was selected to provide in-house training to the entire RAF legal department in relation to Health & Safety in a military and civilian context.

Areas of Practice

Crime

Tab 1 Title:

Edd is consistently instructed to conduct cases of the highest level of complexity and intricacy. He has a reputation for being able to digest voluminous cases promptly and identify the key issues and evidence at an early stage. By doing this he can render the preparation and management of difficult cases much more straightforward for both those instructing and the lay client.

Frequently instructed in matters involving lay clients with serious learning difficulties and mental health problems, Edd has a proven ability to form effective relationships of trust with those clients. He is often preferred for his down to earth and relatable, user-friendly approach, which is equally attractive to juries.

Edd has developed a particular specialisation in complex fraud proceedings and those brought under the Proceeds of Crime Act. He has vast experience in settling complicated, contested confiscation and money laundering applications. He has appeared in the Court of Appeal in a landmark decision on POCA and conducted a three-week hearing following a complex advance fee fraud trial. He is regularly instructed to prosecute by the Complex Case Unit, HMRC and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills in intricate matters such as bankruptcy, hidden asset cases and asset disposal.

Cases of Interest:

Defence:

Operation Baghrash (2019): Leading Junior, representing the former Finance Director of St Margaret’s Hospice. The defendant had been accused, along with the former CEO, of securing grant payments to the value of £1.2million by submitting falsified invoices. A unanimous not guilty verdict was returned, after a seven-week trial.

R v Porter (2019): Junior alone, representing one of the main defendants in a complex joint enterprise to possess a firearm with intent. Evidence included CCTV, cell site analysis, telephone billing data, direct observation, ballistics and analysis of gunpowder residue. Edd’s client was the only defendant to be acquitted (unanimous verdict).

R v Bernothas (2018): A multi-handed conspiracy to import Lithuanian cigarettes on an industrial scale, investigated by HMRC. Edd represented the second defendant who was alleged to have smuggled more than 12 million non-UK duty paid cigarettes, evading £3.6m in duty and VAT into the UK over a two-year period.

R v Issacs (2018): Junior alone, defending a man accused of attempted murder. The attack consisted of multiple blows being inflicted with a claw hammer, to the head and face of a 96-year-old D-Day veteran, in his own home.

Operation Alvin (2017): Junior alone, defending in multi-handed drug conspiracy spread across three cities. Represented a defendant whom the prosecution identified as a leading figure in the OCG, but plea entered on basis of limited involvement. After contested litigation, defendant sentenced on his basis with full credit.

Re: A (2017): Junior alone, defending intrafamilial allegations of sexual assault. The defendant was a highly-vulnerable man who had significant learning difficulties and an autistic-spectrum condition. He was unfit to plead. Complainant was substantially younger.

R v Winter (2017): Junior alone, in a multi-handed case involving a nuclear bunker which had been converted into “the largest cannabis factory to be found in the South of England” generating £2million per year. The defendant was said to have transported foreign nationals to the site to work and collected commercial quantities of cannabis for transportation.

R v Soghe (2017): Junior alone, in a multi-handed violent disorder, involving more than 100 people outside a nightclub. Use of a metal pole in the context of self-defence, after having been stabbed in the back. Unanimous not guilty verdict returned, all other defendants convicted.

R v Said (2016): Led Junior in a murder trial of a man involved in a stabbing in the Gloucester area. Both victim and defendant were known drug dealers. Issues of self-defence and lack of intent in context of multiple knife wounds.

Boshoff v R ([2016] EWCA Crim 215): Concerned the proper level of reduction to be awarded when implementing suspended sentences to reflect compliance with community requirements and when a failure to give that credit will render a sentence ‘manifestly excessive’. Sentence reduced on appeal.

R v Morris (2016): Online grooming “detected” by an internet paedophile-vigilante group who posed as an underage girl and later confronted the defendant whilst filming him. Abuse of process regarding the legality of evidence gathered in such ways and the lawfulness of prosecutions brought based upon evidence gathered by private groups who invite financial contributions from the public.

R v Harris (2015): Allegations concerning forced entry to victim’s premises at night, knife-point rapes over the course of 36 hours and sustained periods of gratuitous degradation. Defence of consent in the context of a pre-existing relationship.

Prosecution:

Re: M (2019): Investigation led by Operation Topaz, Bristol’s CSE team. Child abduction of a vulnerable victim, with ADHD and an inability to identify danger or risk. Successful conviction, despite the defence team making an Application to Dismiss and reliance on previous unfitness findings.

R v Allen (2019): An early successful prosecution for the offence of controlling and coercive behaviour. Features of the evidence included physical violence, emotional control and excessive telephone contact. Complex legal issues of bad character and statutory interpretation were central.

Operation Cleveland (2018): Junior alone, in a ten-handed, £750K drugs conspiracy, involving gang members from Albania. Subsequently appeared for the Respondent in the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, successfully arguing against a reduction in sentence for one of the main conspirators ([2018] EWCA Crim 2751).

R v Swift & Daly (2017): Allegations of conspiracy to cause explosion likely to endanger life. The defendants had conspired to plant and detonate a nail bomb in a residential area. Evidence included covert recordings (raising RIPA issues), expert evidence on explosive substances and forensic analysis of debris. Despite Legal Argument as to the necessary mens rea for conspiracy to commit an offence of specific intent, both defendants were convicted.

R v Parveaz ([2017] EWCA Crim 873, [2017] Crim LR 891): Instructed to conduct complex sentencing exercise and subsequent contested POCA proceedings. The case went to the Court of Appeal to determine the extent and nature of judicial discretion to refuse the making of an order in the context of the statutory scheme. Successfully represented the Crown in that appeal and in subsequent proceedings in which an order for £100,000 was made.

R v Alvarez (2015): Junior alone in CCU prosecution linked to Operation Delphi II. The defendant had been mixing cash received from drug dealers, with legitimate business funds in order to launder the proceeds of crime.

Operation Delphi II (2015): Led junior in an allegation of conspiracy to supply substantial volumes of Class A drugs from the North of England to locations across the South. National scale organised crime group, with international dimension including EAW and bad character evidence from Holland.

Crime Clerks:
Bonnie Colbeck
E: bonnie.colbeck@albionchambers.co.uk
T: 0117 311 0301

Ken Duthie
E: ken.duthie@albionchambers.co.uk
T: 0117 311 0368

Joanna Cload
E: joanna.cload@albionchambers.co.uk
T: 0117 927 1243

Regulatory

Tab 2 Title:

Edd is regularly instructed in a diverse range of proceedings, including regulatory crime prosecutions and matters outside of the crime jurisdiction. He acts for both the prosecution and defence, and therefore has a thorough understanding of the importance of strategy and management of litigation in order to secure the most advantageous outcome for his clients.

Edd has significant experience acting in Local Authority prosecutions, including food hygiene, listed buildings, benefit fraud, forced evictions and breach of licenses. He appears in applications for closure orders and in prosecutions initiated by the HSE, Companies House, the Food Standards Agency and the RSPCA, with a specific interest in cases brought under the Dangerous Dogs Act.

With particular expertise in cases brought under the Child Support Act against non-resident parents (formerly by CMEC or CSA), Edd has been instructed to advise on points of human rights law and enforcement.

Edd is also instructed by a specialist body set up to investigate fraudulent use of disabled parking badges and has a keen interest in matters relating to taxi licensing appeals.

In addition to work in the criminal courts, Edd conducts public enquiries convened by VOSA, prison adjudications, cash forfeiture hearings and matters of professional discipline. He has also acted as Legal Advisor to Local Authority committees in a variety of licensing applications.

Cases of Interest:

NSDC v Montgomery (2020): Successful application for an order of committal to prison, against a landowner who had refused to remove a structure in respect of which there was no planning permission. An injunction had previously been obtained to require its removal.

BCC v Flanagan (2019): Defending the former owner of a café, the allegations having come to light as a result of the death of a customer, who had contracted food poisoning. Substantive offences relating to the day of the deceased’s meal were reduced by negotiation to a single plea to a documentary offence.

DCC v Churches (2019): Prosecution of a farmer, for a range of animal-welfare offences, across two farm locations. Allegations included causing unnecessary suffering and failing to dispose of a decomposing bovine carcass. An order was made disqualifying the defendant from keeping all animals for ten years, 300 hours unpaid work and some £15,000 in costs.

Operation Hammerhead (2019): Instructed by a regional police force to seek and enforce Gang Injunctions under the Police and Crime Act 2009. These orders were sought as part of a wider strategy to identify and disrupt organised crime activity across the South West.

R v Worthy (2019): Prosecution relating to the restriction on re-use of company name, contrary to s.216 Insolvency Act.

R v Sahin (2018): Defence of a company prosecuted by Avon Fire & Rescue Authority for breach of a Prohibition Notice. The case raised issues of the inherent risk occasioned by dangerous works, letting and subletting of residential rooms in commercial buildings and the disputed existence of a “risk to life”.

Re: X Estates Ltd (2018): Defence of a property company, prosecution brought by SFD on behalf of the Forestry Commission. When clearing land to construct a stockproof fence, a contractor engaged by the defendant had removed trees which belonged to a National Trust property and therefore required a felling permit.

R v Taylor (2016): Acted for a farmer whose working dog had badly bitten the face of a child guest at a campsite run on part of his farm. Secured the suspension of a destruction order, meaning that the dog was not destroyed.

SBC v Bukhsh (2016): Food hygiene prosecution of a restauranteur who had previously been prosecuted for poor hygiene practises and who refused to improve his premises or engage with the Local Authority.

BGCBC v Mohammed (2016): Instructed on behalf of a taxi driver whose licence had been revoked for failing a “knowledge test” which was not properly incorporated into the relevant licensing Code and was potentially discriminatory.

R v Lopatka (2016): Prosecuting a parent for failing to ensure their child attended school. One of the first prosecutions following the landmark Court of Appeal decision in Platt.

Clerk:
Nick Jeanes
E: nick.jeanes@albionchambers.co.uk
T: 0117 311 0307

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