Doughty Street Chambers

Criminal Law and AppealsBusiness Crime and InvestigationsExtraditionAnti-TraffickingData Protection and Information Law

Benjamin is frequently instructed in relation to allegations of financial crime, homicide, and serious sexual offences but has substantial expertise across all areas of criminal law. In addition to criminal trials, he regularly advises on and conducts fresh criminal appeals, and he has experience in extradition, courts martial proceedings, and criminal-related public law. He was appointed a Recorder of the Crown Court in 2020 and a judge in the First-tier Tribunal (Mental Health) in 2021.

Financial, Regulatory, and Business Crime

Benjamin is regularly instructed in relation to substantial allegations of fraud and money laundering, and regulatory matters of a financial nature.

He is currently representing an investment banker accused of conspiring to commit fraud by abuse of position in relation to a sovereign wealth fund (R v O, Southwark Crown Court), and the director of a company accused of conspiracy to steal in relation to over £4m of industrial plant (R v Davies, Liverpool Crown Court). He has also recently represented an alleged participant in a conspiracy to launder £7.2m of fraudulently obtained payments (R v A, Southwark Crown Court) and a foreign exchange markets trader accused of defrauding investors (R v B, Bournemouth Crown Court).

Other cases in recent years include the first of three defendants accused of conspiracy to commit fraud in relation to direct payments for personal care (R v N, St Albans Crown Court); a highly respected jeweller accused of fraud in the course of his trade (R v L, Wood Green Crown Court); a marketing executive accused of fraud by abuse of position (R v D, Kingston Crown Court); and one of eight defendants alleged to have misled investors through the sale of carbon credits and diamonds in a multi-million pound ‘boiler room’ fraud (R v A, Southwark Crown Court).

Benjamin is frequently instructed on behalf of professional clients. He recently acted for a company director accused of using a prohibited name following liquidation of a company contrary to s216(3) Insolvency Act 1986 (R v B, Westminster Magistrates Court). He previously defended an accountant against whom allegations of fraud and forgery were dismissed following a submission of no case to answer and in whose favour a wasted costs order was made against the CPS (R v J, Southwark Crown Court), and also a company financial controller who was privately prosecuted for fraud and theft of over £1.5m (R v L, St Albans Crown Court).

Serious Sexual Offences

Benjamin has vast experience in cases relating to the most serious allegations of sexual offending, including cases attracting publicity and requiring careful and delicate conduct both in and out of court. He is also regularly instructed to provide those who have been convicted with fresh advice on appeal.

He is currently instructed for a father accused of abusing his daughter (R v B, Canterbury Crown Court), a man accused of abusing neighbouring children (R v C, Portsmouth Crown Court), a young man accused of raping his girlfriend (R v H, Southwark Crown Court)

Recent cases include a man accused of repeatedly sexually abusing his best friend’s daughter (R v L, Snaresbrook Crown Court), an alleged rape in a woman’s bedroom having followed her home and forced access (R v M, Croydon Crown Court), an alleged rape at the Notting Hill Carnival (R v J, Isleworth Crown Court); a father accused of sexually assaulting his daughter’s friend (R v B, Guildford Crown Court); historic allegations of rape of a child (R v M, Snaresbrook Crown Court); commercial-scale controlling of prostitution (R v D, Woolwich Crown Court); and an allegation of sexually assaulting an emergency worker (R v A, Chelmsford Crown Court).

Homicide

Benjamin is frequently instructed to defend in cases of murder, attempted murder, and manslaughter at first instance and to provide fresh advice on appeal.

He is currently instructed for a fifteen-year-old accused of a joint enterprise murder (R v C, Maidstone Crown Court), a man who stabbed an associate in self-defence during an altercation (R v A, Croydon Crown Court) and the first of three defendants accused of a fatal stabbing in a reprisal attack (R v W, Central Criminal Court). He is also representing two appellants before the Privy Council in relation to their convictions for murder in Jamaica.

Recent cases include the strangulation of a partner leading to diminished responsibility manslaughter due to undiagnosed schizophrenia (R v T, Inner London Crown Court), a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity due to schizoaffective disorder (R v S, Croydon Crown Court), a murder for gain in the course of a fraudulent transaction (R v G, Snaresbrook Crown Court), and an eight-handed murder with a firearm following a group confrontation (R v C, Central Criminal Court).

Benjamin also has experience in relation to complex gross-negligence manslaughter cases, including the death of a restrained customer by three nightclub doormen through positional asphyxiation (R v R, Central Criminal Court) and the death of a patient following a surgical procedure (R v P, Central Criminal Court).

Benjamin is also regularly instructed in relation to road traffic fatalities. He is currently instructed in relation to a collision outside a London nightclub (R v A, Central Criminal Court) and recently represented a woman who had knocked over an elderly man while pulling away from a busy junction (R v Y, Harrow Crown Court) and a schoolteacher involved in a night-time fatality on a quiet residential road (R v S, Isleworth Crown Court).

Terrorism

Benjamin has appeared in numerous significant terrorism cases, including a female ‘lone wolf’ who had planned a suicide attack at St Paul’s Cathedral (R v S, Central Criminal Court) and the founder of the right-wing proscribed group National Action (R v D, Central Criminal Court).

He also acted in two lengthy trials for the first of five defendants alleged to have continued in their membership of a proscribed organisation, contrary to s11 Terrorism Act 2000 (R v J, Birmingham Crown Court).

Benjamin has previously acted for a serial offender in relation to dissemination of terrorist material and encouraging acts of terrorism (R v N, Newcastle Crown Court), and a defendant involved in a multi-handed confidence fraud targeting retired individuals across the south of England that was dubbed the ‘Bank of Terror’ and tried at the Central Criminal Court due to alleged connections to ISIS.

Serious Criminal Offences

Benjamin is consistently instructed to act for defendants charged with the most serious of offences across the criminal spectrum and is specifically sought to represent individuals charged with unusual offences.

He recently acted for a retired nurse who was tried for sending threatening communications to members of the House of Lords in support of the Assisted Dying Bill (R v O, Southwark Crown Court). Prior to this he was instructed in a five-handed conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm with intent and joint enterprise false imprisonment relating to an alleged honour attack (R v I, Wood Green Crown Court) and an organised crime conspiracy relating to drugs and firearms arising from the EncroChat hack (R v H, Southwark Crown Court). He also represented a lorry driver accused of conspiring with three co-defendants to facilitate unlawful immigration into the UK (R v M, Newcastle Crown Court).

Criminal Appeals

Benjamin is frequently instructed to advise on fresh appeals and applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, and regularly appears in the Court of Appeal. He is a contributor to Taylor on Criminal Appeals.

Current cases include the appeals of two animal rights activists who were convicted of crimes instigated by an undercover police officer; several fresh appeals for individuals convicted of sexual offences; and a pending application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court in relation to the ambit of the statutory offence of public nuisance.

From 2012 to 2021, Benjamin advised and acted for the Shrewsbury Pickets, building workers who were convicted of offences following the first national building workers strike in 1972. Following extensive work by the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign and a referral by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, their convictions were eventually quashed by the Court of Appeal almost fifty years later (R v Warren and others [2021] EWCA Crim 413).

Benjamin regularly represents victims of trafficking who were wrongly convicted of criminal offences (examples include R v AAC [2023] EWCA Crim 15; R v AGM [2022] EWCA Crim 920; R v V(T) [2019] EWCA Crim 1223; R v N [2019] EWCA Crim 984; and R v HTP [2016] EWCA Crim 1959.

Benjamin also has expertise in criminal-related judicial review, such as the quashing and remittal of a sentence due to procedural unfairness in R (on the application of Gatenby) v Newton Aycliffe Magistrates Court [2017] EWHC 3772 (Admin).

Publications

Benjamin is co-editor of Human Rights in Criminal Law (Bloomsbury 2023) and has previously contributed chapters to Human Rights in the Investigation and Prosecution of Crime, edited by Jonathan Cooper OBE and Madeleine Colvin, and Taylor on Criminal Appeals, edited by Paul Taylor. He also regularly writes articles and presents seminars on his specialist areas of practice.

Fraud Lawyers Association

Criminal Bar Association

Lawyers for Liberty

Brynteg Comprehensive School, Bridgend; Jesus College, Oxford University (2002, BA Hons, philosophy, politics and economics); City University (2003, postgraduate diploma in law; 2004, BVC).