Simon Rippon
CPS Grade: 3
Direct Access
Accredited by the Bar Council under the Direct Access procedure, and in suitable cases is happy to accept instructions directly from members of the public. Please refer to the Direct Access section of the website for further information.
Continuing Professional Development
In the Citadel series, has lectured on mitigation and on identification evidence.
Areas Of Specialism
Drugs & Gang-Related Offences, Human trafficking and modern slavery, Murder & Manslaughter, Sexual Offences
Career overview
Practice Summary
Details of practice
Has established a practice which is predominantly defence, but is also instructed to prosecute. Regularly instructed to represent those charged with homicide, serious sexual offences (including historic and non-historic allegations of rape and indecent assault against children), armed robbery, significant drug importations and conspiracies to supply, fraud and other offences of dishonesty, offences against the person, and death by dangerous driving.
Simon has has various hearings before the Court of Appeal (Criminal division). He recently appeared in R v Faris Uddin [2022] EWCA Crim 751. In what has been called a ‘significant judgment’ that has changed the law, Simon successfully argued that a mandatory minimum sentence could be suspended.
He also accepts instructions to conduct privately funded motoring matters in the Magistrates’ Court, and to appear at Coroner’s inquests.
Sexual offences:
- Recent cases have included:
- Represented an Iraqi Kurd charged with multiple counts of rape, acquitted following s78 PACE application.
- Represented the respondent in R -v- Hicks [2009] EWCA Crim 733, regarding Sexual Offences Prevention Orders.
- Represented a defendant charged with rape and other serious sexual offences against 4 complainants over a span of 30 years.
- Represented a defendant charged with a series of sexual assaults upon young girls, over and under 13 years.
- Represented a teenager charged with multiple counts of rape and sexual activity concerning several children, the trial lasting 3 months.
Human trafficking and modern slavery:
- Recent cases have included:
- Represented one of a number of defendants charged with human trafficking for the purposes of prostitution, in the country’s longest-running trial of its kind: a case involving European arrest warrants and forensic scrutiny of bank accounts, computers and telephones.
- Represented the principal defendant in a ‘human trafficking’ case, where the victim had been lured to the UK and forced into prostitution, by violence and threats including the discharge of a firearm.
Murder and manslaughter:
Recent cases have included:
- Instructed advocate and junior counsel representing defendant in a high-profile murder case involving complex scientific evidence.
Drugs & gang-related offences:
Recent cases have included:
- Represented a defendant charged with conspiracy to import drugs to the value of £26 million.
- Various Proceeds of Crime Act hearings with substantial alleged benefit figures, up to many £millions.