Ranked amongst the UK\’s best serious crime barristers

Reported in the Press as ‘the Billon Dollar Bruvs’ to reflect their level of involvement in international drug trafficking. Over £5m in cash was found on their arrest and tens of millions in assets were uncovered.

The importation of 30 kilos of cocaine which involved the use of telephone intercepts provided by the Dutch authorities.

A complicated plan to open up a drugs route in to the country via Tilbury Docks that involved corrupt dockworkers’ forging paper work and allowing the gang access to restricted customs areas.

Acted in the 21st July bombers appeal before the Court of Appeal (he was not the original trial counsel). The appeal was heard over 2 days. Stephen Vullo identified that the Police, Crown and all involved in the trial had incorrectly proceeded on the basis that senior police officers had acted in accordance with the codes of practice when denying Omar, the Warren Street bomber, access to a solicitor to allow ‘emergency safety interviews to be conducted’. In rejecting the appeal the Court had to concede that there was a breach of the codes. The Court held that the subsequent use by the Crown of the comments made in those interviews even though made in the absence of a solicitor coupled with the police administering the incorrect (new style) caution did not render the conviction unsafe. This matter is now pending appeal in the ECJ.

The defendant was accused of planting the Tiger Tiger and Haymarket car bombs the day before breaching security at Glasgow Airport to ram his green Cherokee jeep into the front of Glasgow Airport in an attempt to detonate an improvised explosure device in the rear compartment of the vehicle. Stephen Vullo conducted all cross-examination of the Crown’s numerous explosives experts. The issue was whether the devices were capable of detonation. The defendant claimed they had been manufactured in such a way as to ensure they would not explode. The Crown’s case was that only incompetance prevented the mass murder of hundreds of civilians in both London and Glasgow. The defendant’s assertion of intentional design was rejected but the Judge reduced the sentence he would normally have passed on the basis that he had accepted on hearing cross-examination that the devices were not capable of detonating.

The defendants were charged with kidnap, blackmail, various assaults including sexual assault on a male with one of the defendants charged with rape of the same victim. The trial lasted for just under 2 months and presented a myriad of problems to be overcome. The first was a legal matter relating to whether the complainant could have anonymity in respect of the sexual offences. Expert evidence was served late in relation to the download from a mobile phone on the very contentious issue of whether the defendant had photographed the sexual assault on his mobile phone. At one stage the crown’s expert refused to disclose how he had obtained the material quoting copyright problems with the program he had written. This evidence was eventually excluded after a voir dire

A 16-year-old girl accused of abducting a baby for 2 days following a phantom pregnancy.

An accusation of false imprisonment, assault and robbery of 2 transsexual prostitutes who the defence alleged had stolen an MP’s briefcase.

S.18 accusation – represented Sol Campbell’s brother accused of seriously assaulting the complainant following homophobic comments made about Sol Campbell at a football training ground.