Dominic Connolly

Year of call: 1989
Middle Temple (Blackstone Award)

Education / Qualifications

LL.B (Hons) London School of Economics (Upper Second).

Appointments

Standing Counsel to Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office

Specialist Practice Areas

Serious crime, including fraud.

Profile

An experienced criminal practitioner whose practice principally concerns large-scale organised crime. As Standing Counsel to RCPO, he has been instructed in the prosecution of the most serious offences for Revenue and Customs and the Serious and Organised Crime Agency. In addition, he undertakes cases across the full range of serious criminal work.

For some years, he has prosecuted, as leading junior, many complex, multi-handed cases of drug smuggling, money laundering, tax evasion (including VAT) and excise fraud. He has prosecuted for the Crown Prosecution Service in serious and high profile cases as leading Counsel including murder (as leading junior and on his own), conspiracy to defraud, corruption, rape and historic sexual abuse.

He has acted on behalf of other Government Departments / Agencies including the Department of Work and Pensions, Department of Health and the Asset Recovery Agency. He has also prosecuted on behalf of a number of Local Authorities.

A significant proportion of his practice relates to the restraint, confiscation and forfeiture of the proceeds of crime in the Court of Appeal, Divisional Court, High Court, Crown Court and Magistrates Court. A number of his cases are reported, including the leading cases of Patel and Allpress.

Professional Memberships
Criminal Bar Association
South Eastern Circuit
Proceeds of Crime Lawyers Association
Kent Bar Mess
Football Association affiliated lawyer

Appointments

• Standing Counsel to the Revenue & Customs Prosecutions Office (2008)

Specialist Practice Areas

• Crime
• Fraud
• Asset Forfeiture & Confiscation
• Sexual Offences
• Direct Access Representation
• Direct Access - How to Proceed

Cases of Note

• Operation Evenwood A prosecution of a multiple identity Tax Credits fraud. A large number of Slovakian women were brought to the UK to make fraudulent claims for Working and Child Tax Credits. These claims were then continued and maintained by the defendants. It was described in the national press as the largest fraud of its kind.
• Op Hannah (R v Gandesha & Ors). A prosecution on behalf of the Medicines and Health Regulatory Agency concerning a series of importation and subsequent supply of counterfeit medicines (Seretide Evohalers).
• R v Dadabhoy - Conspiracy to defraud. This case concerns an "advance fee frauds." Between 2005 and 2008, a very large number of people, both in this country and abroad, were contacted by fraudsters and told that they had won huge sums of money in a lottery. They were then induced to pay increasingly large sums of money in order to secure their winnings. Despite paying these sums, no prize money was ever forthcoming.
• Op Hopi - (R v Adesinya & Ors). Five handed drug importation. consignment of two large boxes purporting to contain food from Nigeria was intercepted and examined at Heathrow Airport. Amongst the food were a large number of sachets of what, according to the packaging, was seasoning. In fact, many of those sachets contained not seasoning but cocaine totalling 21 kilograms with an estimated street value of £3.6 million.
• R v Fender - Murder trial following death of young mother at the hands of her former common law husband.
• Op Imitate (R v Stephen Court & Ors) . This was one of the largest fraud investigations ever carried out by the Kent Police. A seven handed prosecution of 3 separate conspiracies to defraud. Numerous bogus companies were set up using multiple false identities. Trade accounts were set up in these company names and goods were obtained on credit. VAT repayment returns were submitted to HMRC using these and other trading entities. Over £4 million was obtained as a result of these frauds. The proceeds were laundered using a complex network of bank accounts in multiple identities. Much of the proceeds were sent abroad. This was the most substantial prosecution handled by Kent Police. In subsequent confiscation proceedings, assets exceeding £1 million were obtained from the principal offender.
• R v Manuel . Lead Counsel in the murder prosecution of a heroin dealer following the stabbing of a heroin user.
• R v Rahmonov & Ors. The prosecution of an internet banking fraud following an investigation by the Metropolitan Police's e-Crime Unit, local boroughs and Specialist Crime Directorate. This was the first operation of its kind working in collaboration with the financial services industry. Fraudsters made use of a "Trojan" computer programme to infect the computers of members of the public. When customers with infected computers went to use online banking, the Trojan programme allowed the fraudsters to obtain sufficient personal details to enable them to transfer large sums of money from these online accounts into bank accounts controlled by the fraudsters, referred to as mule accounts. These fraudulently obtained funds were then withdrawn from the mule accounts. Much of this money was then sent abroad, to Eastern Europe.
• R v Gonzales [2010] EWHC 3428>
• Op Hortatio (R v Moon & Ors). A prosecution involving serving prisoners in the UK and South America conspiring together and with others to import Class A drugs from South America into the UK and Republic of Ireland.
• Operation Marjoram. R v Abimbola and Others. This was a prosecution of two conspiracies to fraudulently obtain tax credits and VAT repayments. The case involved the collation of over 800 stolen identities and the use of these details to make in excess of 400 fraudulent applications for tax credits and VAT repayments. The potential loss to the Revenue exceeded £5.2 million. The actual loss exceeded £350,000.
• R v Lim CITES prosecution
• Operation Erasure. R v Smith and Others. A seven handed prosecution on behalf of the CPS. Instructed as leading counsel in the prosecution of a prolific team of "rogue builders" who defrauded over 40 elderly or otherwise vulnerable householders in London and across South East England. In excess of £800,000 was fraudulently obtained. The case was widely reported in the national media.
• Operation Turbine. R v Ullah and Others. Instructed as leading Counsel in the prosecution of two serving officers of HM Revenue & Customs and others in a sophisticated VAT repayment fraud, involving the setting up of two fictitious businesses, supposedly with a view to publishing a celebrity cook book. One of the witnesses for the Crown was Marco Pierre White.
• Op Bristol (R v Roberts & Ors) - R v Roberts & Ors - Instructed by the Complex Case Unit (formerly the Organised Crime Unit) in Kent as junior Counsel in a conspiracy to carry out ram raids on cash machines across South East England.
• Op Attest (R v Carrington, Khan & Ors) - 4 handed cigarette smuggling
• Op Backrest (R v Dimitrijevic & Ors) - 5 handed cigarette smuggling. 3 million cigarettes, which should have attracted excise duty of £ ½ million.
• R v Simkus & Ors; The prosecution of a multi handed tobacco smuggling ring involving the storage of smuggled excise goods in commercial storage units across London.
• Suchedina - Junior Counsel in a multi-million pound money laundering operation carried on at a bureau de change in Central London. The main defendant's conviction was overturned in the Court of Appeal following the case of R v Montila. Dominic was instructed as leading Counsel in the re-trial.
• R v Smith & Ors - Defending criminal associate of alleged to have falsely imprisoned and tortured three youths who had burgled the drug dealer's home and stolen drugs.
• R v Smiles - Defence Counsel for a company Director accused of providing bribes to secure contracts from a multi-national insurance company.
• R v Smith & Ors; Defending a man accused with others of false imprisonment of three juveniles who had burgled an associate's flat;
• R v Suchedina; Leading Counsel in the prosecution of a London based money exchange dealer on a charge of conspiracy to money launder the proceeds of drug dealing and / or other crime.
• R v Lim - A Prosecution under CITES regulations involving the smuggling of endangered species, namely rare orchids from Indonesia, a case that attracted considerable media attention.
• R v Young; the prosecution of a Solicitor on charges of theft of funds from the firm's client account and using a forged instrument, namely a bank statement submitted to the Law Society in an attempt to cover up the crime.
• R v Ward & Ors; Junior Counsel in a multi handed Serious Fraud Office prosecution of two Solicitors, a mortgage broker, an accountant and others in a multiple mortgage fraud and money laundering case. Subsequently had sole conduct of confiscation proceedings in which an order in the sum of approximately £1.5 million was obtained, although this was subsequently reduced by the Court of Appeal following the decision of the House of Lords in R v May.
• R v Crewe & Ors - Junior Counsel in two handed murder.
• Operation Kilimanjaro - Leading Counsel in a conspiracy to supply heroin.
• R v Westell; Prosecution of a Chartered Accountant in a complex VAT fraud and theft of monies from a client account.
• R v Bayley - Junior Counsel in the prosecution of a Chartered Accountant on charges of evasion of VAT amounting to nearly a million pounds.
• R v Smith & Ors; Junior Counsel in the prosecution of 3 prison officers, an inmate and the inmate's wife on charges of corruption;
• Operation Horntail (R v Seenauth & Ors); Leading counsel in the prosecution of a cocaine smuggling ring who were using airport cleaners to collect rucksacks containing cocaine from passengers arriving from Jamaica and using their Airport Security passes to by-pass Customs controls.
• Operation Draft (R v Michael Michael & Ors). - Junior Counsel in what was then the largest ever prosecution brought by HM Customs & Excise (as they then were). The case involved the arrest of a major international drug trafficker. He and three of his close associates pleaded guilty and provided evidence for the Crown leading to the arrest and prosecution of over 40 of his criminal associates including a serving police officer, a solicitor's clerk and two notorious expatriate drug barons.
• R v Pugh - Junior Counsel in a combined prosecution by Inland Revenue and HM Customs & Excise (as they then were) into an income tax and VAT fraud carried out by a successful businessman.
• Operation Quiver; Junior Counsel in a multi handed benefit agency fraud
• Reported Cases
• R v Symeou & Allpress - Judgement awaited (meaning of "benefit" in confiscation proceedings).
• R v Kenedy [2008] EWCA Crim 2817 (Requirement of holding an identity parade and disclosure)
• R v Moreland
• R v Briggs [2003] EWCA Crim 329 (effect of defendant obtaining certificate of inadequacy in confiscation proceedings).
• McKenna v DPP [2005] EWHC (Admin) 677 (effect of failure to hold identification parade).
• Attorney-General's Reference No. 3 of 2003 [2004] EWCA Crim 1867
• R v Patel [2000] 2 Cr.App.R.(S) 10 (meaning of "benefit" under CJA 1988.
• R v Shields [1997] Crim.L.R.59 (timing of majority direction to Jury).