Rupert Jones

Homicide & Serious Violence

• Instructed in cases involving murder, manslaughter, and death by dangerous driving, including cases with complex evidence of causation.
• Represented a man accused of murder of a taxi driver following a dispute about a fare.
• 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 multiple injuries inflicted by the defendant.
• 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.

Terrorism

• Instructed in cases concerning terrorism offences, and cases with a terrorist connection.
• Leading Junior in a protest case concerning £1.2m of damage, in which Rupert successfully argued that the defences were incapable in law of applying to the facts of the case.
• Prosecuted a case involving the possession of materials useful to a terrorist, where home made firearms and weapons had been produced.

Fraud

• Led-Junior in the prosecution of a massive pension liberation fraud, involving complex tax law, numerous trusts and company structures, FCA regulations and thousands of pages of evidence. Rupert was involved from pre-charge to trial.
• Instructed in cases concerning fraudulent covid loans.
• 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.

Organised Criminal Gangs

• Junior Prosecuting Counsel in Operationa Golddust and Cookie: A complex investigation into the supply of firearms to criminal gangs, by smuggling firearms from overseas and creating custom-made ammunition for guns. Many of the weapons recovered had been used in criminal offences, including murders.
• Junior alone in the prosecution of a group who kidnapped an accountant and made gun-point ransom demands.
• Prosecuting members of an OCG involved in robbing a sports car salesman at gunpoint in a case where the principal prosecution witness became hostile.

Drugs

• Led-Junior and Junior Alone in an Operation targeting over 60 defendants supplying class A drugs through multiple drugs lines. The case involved complex undercover evidence, and issues of entrapment.
• Instructed in the case of a pharmacist who sold class C drugs to organised criminal gangs.
• Led-Junior in the prosecution of a criminal group involved in the production of £11m worth of counterfeit Xanax.
• Junior alone prosecuting the head of an OCG involved in selling millions of pounds worth of class C drugs that were smuggled into the country.
• Instructed in the case of a pharmacist who sold class C drugs to organised criminal gangs.
• Prosecuted a healthcare worker who sold what she claimed to be ‘herbal cream’ to consumers, including children, but in fact contained powerful steroids.
• Junior Counsel representing a defendant accused of smuggling 8 million cigarettes into the UK.

Sexual Offences

• 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.
• Instructed for the prosecution and defence in cases involving multi-complainant cases concerning serious sexual offences.

Other cases

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Reporting Restrictions & Public Law

• 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: R v Sarker [2018] EWCA Crim 1341
• 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).
• Instructed for the media to secured the removal of reporting restrictions imposed in an ongoing trial.
• 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.