David McNeill

Year of Call: 2003

David has wide experience of criminal prosecution and defence work. He has appeared alone in Crown Court trials for kidnapping, importation and supply of Class A drugs, conspiracy to defraud, GBH, serious harassment, robberies and burglaries. David is on the C list of the Attorney General's Unified List of Prosecution Advocates and regularly prosecutes for HM Revenue and Customs and the Department of Work and Pensions.

He has conducted prosecutions for local authorities in magistrates' courts, as well as being instructed privately in motoring cases and by major insurers in magistrates courts trials.

In the fields of asset forfeiture and confiscation David has appeared for Customs and Excise and the Metropolitan police in the Crown, county and magistrates' courts.

David's civil practice encompasses contract and common law, personal injury and landlord and tenant. He has appeared alone in fast track trials, multi-track trials and mediations.

David maintains a long-standing interest in China. On his most recent visit he took part in seminars led by Chinese universities and prosecutors on improving defendants' rights, lectured to Chinese students on English criminal law and established links with Chinese criminal defence lawyers.

Professional Memberships

Southeastern Circuit

Criminal Bar Association

Languages

Mandarin Chinese (spoken and written)

Direct public access

David accepts instructions directly from members of the public.

Specialist Practice Areas

• Crime
• Fraud
• Asset Forfeiture & Confiscation
• Extradition
• Sexual Offences
• Regulatory
• Road Traffic Law
• Health & Safety
• Civil Practice
• Contract & Commercial
• Personal Injury
• Direct Public Access

Cases of Note

• R v Lawrence (Crown Court)
  Authority on the meaning of "cause or allow" in s 111A (1A) (d) of the Social Security Administration Act 1990
• R v Wright and others (Crown Court)
  Junior counsel in a multi-handed tobacco smuggling case where the loss to the Revenue was £12.5 m
• R v Muller (Crown Court)
  Prosecution for HM Revenue and Customs of an importation into Harwich of 162 kilograms of cannabis. The prosecution case involved tachograph expert evidence as well as foreign evidence from six European countries.
• R v Reynolds and Drew (Crown Court)
  Junior counsel in a prosecution of a Sussex businessman for evasion of £650,000 of VAT
• R v Chen and Wang (Crown Court)
  Prosecution of two defendants for the organised importation of more than 1.5 tons of tobacco from China to the UK
• Operation Tangelo II (Crown Court)
  Member of the disclosure team devising strategy and reviewing material in relation to a multi-million pound Excise and VAT Fraud.