The areas of work in which we have particular expertise, experience and excellence
The areas of work in which we have particular expertise, experience and excellence
Barristers
Call 1999
Simon Shannon works exclusively as a criminal practitioner, prosecuting and defending in equal measure both in and out of London.
He is regularly instructed in cases of complex fraud, rape and serious sexual offences, drug trafficking and violence. He has appeared frequently in the Court of Appeal, both for the appellant and respondent.
Simon acts on behalf of private prosecutors in the Magistrates’ and Crown courts.
He has appeared in a number of cases that have attracted national media coverage.
Simon is a Level 3 prosecutor on the CPS Advocate Panel List. He is also on the specialist Rape and Serious Sexual Offences Panel and the Fraud Panel.
Simon has prosecuted and defended in a number of complex fraud cases of varying natures.
nstructed as a led junior for the third defendant in an eight-handed, £7 million carbon credit fraud listed for three months. Following extensive legal argument before the close of its case, the Crown, who relied in large part on evidence of the state of the carbon credit market at the relevant time, was forced to acknowledge that its expert fell well short of the standards required in legal proceedings, and that there had been disclosure failings, such that it was unfair to continue to try the defendants.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/fraud-convictions-in-doubt-as-expert-witness-shown-to-have-no-qualifications-jbscsvd7p
Regina v. FI and four others (2019)
Instructed by the Crown to prosecute this case of courier fraud in which elderly victims were duped into handing over cash and jewellery bought under the direction of the defendants masquerading as police officers.
Regina v. IA and three others (2018)
Instructed as a led junior for the fourth defendant in a complex Customs and Excise prosecution brought under section 68 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979. This six-week trial concerned the exportation of military and dual-use aircraft parts to Malaysia for onward shipment to Iran for use in its WMD programme.
Regina v. SM and seven others (2018)
Instructed as a led junior for the third defendant in a six-week, £1 million ”binary trading” boiler room fraud.
Operation Balendore (2016)
Instructed as a led junior for the prosecution by CPS Special Casework in a £13 million money laundering conspiracy. The case concerned the running of and provision of payment services to several central London brothels, the proceeds of which were laundered through a succession of sham companies. More than £6 million was recovered from the defendants under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. At the time, this was one of the largest confiscation orders ever made in proceedings investigated by the Metropolitan Police.
Simon has recent experience of homicide cases.
Operation Auchnarrow (2021)
Led junior for the fourth defendant in a five-handed conspiracy to murder, which involved a double shooting and a stabbing of three men as part of a suspected turf war. Acquitted following an eight-week trial at the Central Criminal Court.
Simon acts on behalf of private prosecutors, including in complex cases. As well as being an accomplished trial advocate, he is experienced in a range of pre- and post-trial matters. These include the giving of charging advice to the commencement of proceedings in the magistrates’ court, the restraint of defendants’ assets, the production of third-party material in the Crown Court, directorship disqualification, and confiscation of assets.
R v. RL (2021)
Instructed as junior counsel in a fraud by abuse of position, in which the defendant was alleged to have diverted more than £1.5 million of company money to fund his luxury lifestyle in a number of different ways. Sentenced to 51 months’ imprisonment.
Simon is highly experienced in prosecuting rape and serious sexual offences, including both recent and non-recent offences, offences involving children and persons with mental disorders, and offences involving indecent images of children.
Regina v MB (2022)
Instructed to prosecute two non-recent marital rapes within the context of an arranged marriage. Sentenced to eight-and-a-half years’ imprisonment.
Regina v. RM (2021)
Instructed to prosecute a defendant who was convicted of sexually assaulting an 86-year-old woman with advanced dementia.
Regina v. PW (2019)
Instructed to prosecute a defendant accused of the historic sexual abuse of his three stepdaughters over a ten-year period, commencing in the mid-1990s. Sentenced to 21 years’ imprisonment after a four-week trial. Both the convictions and sentences were upheld on appeal.
Regina v. AD (2018)
Instructed to prosecute a recidivist paedophile for causing boys under 13 to engage in sexual activity and possessing indecent images of children. The defendant had abused his position as a Credit Union branch manager in order to groom the children of customers. A number of digital storage devices were seized from his home address, which contained more than a quarter of a million unique images of child sex abuse. Sentenced to an extended sentence of 18 years.
Instructed to prosecute a retired vicar for multiple indecent assaults on a choir boy at his parish church in Stoke Newington in the late 1970s. The complainant was in the advanced stages of motor neurone disease at the time of the trial and was completely paralysed save for the use of a single facial muscle which allowed him to communicate using a Liberator Accent Eye Gaze System. The use of that system during the trial was the first instance of its kind in England and Wales.
Regina v. AG (2016)
Instructed to prosecute the defendant for the rape of a six-year-old girl in 1980, as part of a campaign of sexual offending against young children over two generations. Sentenced to life imprisonment.
Simon has regularly appeared on both sides of the bar in cases involving violence and coercive behaviour.
Regina v TT (2019)
Instructed to defend the sixth of nine defendants in a conspiracy to kidnap, falsely imprison and blackmail in a case that rested on the interpretation of cell site evidence. Acquitted following an eight-week trial.
Members of 3TG represented three of four defendants acquitted of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to endanger life following an eight-week trial at the Central Criminal Court, which concluded this…
Adam Davis QC, Peter Rouch QC, John Femi-Ola QC, Simon Shannon and James Wing start a multi-handed conspiracy to murder trial at the Central Criminal Court.The trial is estimated to last for five weeks.Adam and…
Regulated by the Bar Standards Board (BSB)
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