Rupert Jones

Rupert is instructed in large-scale OCG crime, complex frauds, drug networks, sexual offences, and business and regulatory matters.

He regularly appears in the Court of Appeal and High Court.

Rupert also undertakes media law. He has vast experience of challenging reporting restrictions, defending defamation and malicious falsehood claims, and drafting pleadings and advices in civil litigation.

OCGs

Rupert appears in offences involving the supply of firearms, drugs and human trafficking.  His cases include:

• Junior Prosecuting Counsel in Operational Golddust and Cookies: A complex investigation into the supply of firearms to criminal gangs, by smuggling firearms from overseas and creating custom-made ammunition for older ‘obsolete’ handguns. Many of the weapons recovered had been used in criminal activity, including murders.
• Prosecuting Operation Ballet: A prosecution of over 60 criminals for their involvement in county lines drug dealing in the Midlands. Every defendant was convicted.
• Defending in Operation Chive/Icon: A large-scale police investigation into a human trafficking and prostitution ring operating nationwide.
• Defending in a large scale drug conspiracy involving encro-chat communications.
• Prosecuting kidnapping offences by drugs gangs across the Midlands.
• Prosecuting members of an OCG involved in robbing a sports car salesman at gunpoint in a case where the principal prosecution witness became hostile.

FRAUD

Rupert’s cases include:

• Junior prosecuting counsel in a case involving allegations of a multi-million pound pension liberation fraud.
• Prosecuting Pharmacists who sold class C drugs ‘under the counter’ and to OCGs.
• Prosecuting the head of an OCG involved in selling millions of pounds worth of class C drugs that were smuggled into the country.
• Prosecuted a healthcare worker who sold what she claimed to be ‘herbal cream’ to consumers, including children, but in fact contained powerful steroids.
• Prosecuted a mechanic charged with defrauding a customer during works carried out on a high value sports car.
• Successfully represented the Crown at the Court of Appeal where the Defendant sought the variation of the terms of a confiscation order on the grounds of mistake.
• Junior Counsel representing a defendant accused of smuggling 8 million cigarettes into the UK.

SEXUAL OFFENCES

Rupert is a member of the RASSO panel of specialist prosecuting advocates for rape and serious sexual offences. His cases include:

• Instructed for the defence in Birmingham Crown Court’s first s28 cross-examination case. The most serious charge was dismissed following a successful half-time submission.
• Prosecuted historic offences involving victims based in other countries.
• Appeared in the Court of Appeal in respect of historic offences. The court described Rupert’s submissions as having ‘commendably succinct persuasiveness’.

VIOLENCE

Rupert prosecutes and defends in cases of serious violence, including gang violence. His cases include:

• Representation of a man accused of murder of a taxi driver following a dispute about a fare.
• Represented a man accused of aggravated burglary. The defendant had waived privilege and his former lawyers were called as prosecution witnesses. The trial involved detailed cell site evidence, and expert evidence relating to malingering in memory examinations.
• Represented a man who handed himself in to the police saying ‘I think I’ve killed my girlfriend’. However, the pathologist attributed the cause of the victim’s death to drugs, rather than the multiple injuries inflicted by the defendant.
• Defended a rugby player charged with violent disorder following a serious outbreak of violence at a London nightclub. After forceful submissions, the case against the defendant was dropped.
• Prosecuted three footballers charged with assaulting an opposition player, which left the victim with a fractured cheekbone.
• Represented a taxi driver accused of a deliberately running over a fare evader
• Represented two defendants charged with violent disorder following one of the largest incidents of football related public disorder in the Midlands.
• Represented a man charged with assaulting a police officer and using threatening behaviour towards a ticket inspector on a train. At trial, the court accepted the defendant had acted in lawful self-defence and the police officer had been acting unlawfully in seeking to arrest the defendant.
• Assisted Leading and Junior Counsel during the trial and subsequent appeal in a landmark case touching on issues of insanity, automatism and specific-intent in the context of self-induced intoxication: R v Coley [2013] EWCA Crim 223.

OTHER AREAS & REGULATORY

• Successfully represented the Respondent in an appeal to the Administrative Division of the High Court by way of case stated. Rupert’s client had been issued with a community protection notice by a local authority. Rupert argued that the legal basis for the notice was flawed: Staffordshire Moorlands District Council v Sanderson [2020] EWHC 962 (Admin).
• Acted for a Sport’s National Governing Body in disciplinary proceedings against an instructor accused of an inappropriate relationship with a student. The case involved counter-allegations against the NGB of perverting the course of justice, bias, and procedural complaints. The prosecution was successfully pursued.
• Acted for the police in a civil case where the claimant said police officers had assaulted him at the Birmingham v Villa derby. The claim was dismissed following cross-examination of the claimant and his witness, which exposed significant flaws in their accounts.
• Acted for the BBC in a challenge to reporting restrictions. Rupert’s skeleton argument was cited and approved by the Lord Chief Justice in the appeal: Regina v Sarker [2018] EWCA Crim 1341
• Secured the removal of reporting restrictions imposed at Stafford Crown Court.
• Successfully challenged reporting restrictions imposed in the Crown Court on behalf of a newspaper: argued that the order preventing the publication of the defendant’s identity was not a necessary and proportionate derogation from the Article 10 rights of media companies.
• Represented the defendant website owner in a commercial copyright dispute; the case settled at mediation following service of the Defence.
• Successfully resisted a claimant’s application for default judgment in a claim for libel brought against the defendant newspaper.
• Successfully represented a defendant newspaper by striking out a claim for libel as an abuse of process when the newspaper had mistakenly reported that the Claimant had pleaded guilty to assault.