Simon Shannon > 3TG Barristers > London, England > Barrister Profile

Since his call to the bar Simon has worked 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.  He accepts private instructions in the magistrates’ court.

Recently, Simon 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 and is additionally on the specialist Rape and Serious Sexual Offences Panel and the Fraud Panel.

Fraud and Related

Operation Balaban (2019) – instructed 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.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/29/35million-diamond-scam-case-collapses-cps-star-witness-discredited/

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 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.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/29/shropshire-couple-groomed-supplying-parts-irans-nuclear-programme/

Regina v. SM and seven others (2018) – instructed as a led junior for the third defendant in a six-week, million-pound ‘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, which at the time was one of the largest confiscation orders ever made in proceedings investigated by the Metropolitan Police.

Sexual Offences

Regina v. PW (2019) – instructed to prosecute a defendant accused of the historic sexual abuse of his three step-daughters over a ten-year period commencing in the mid 1990s.  Sentenced to 21 years’ imprisonment after a four-week trial.

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.  Seized from his home address were a number of digital storage devices on which were found more than a quarter of a million unique images of child sex abuse.  Sentenced to an extended sentence of 18 years.

Regina v. GP (2018) – instructed to prosecute the defendant for multiple offences of rape and assault on his partner and for perverting the course of justice.

Regina v. CR (2017) – 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 same system during the trial was the first instance of its kind in England and Wales.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-39230850

Regina v. AG (2016)  – instructed to prosecute the defendant for the rape of a six-year-old girl in 1980.  Sentenced to life imprisonment as part of a campaign of sexual offending against young children over two generations.

Regina v. AB (2014) – instructed to defend a retired Imam for assault by penetration of a woman in his pastoral care.