Furnival Chambers

Specialist practice areas: serious crime, criminal/civil fraud, serious sexual offences, regulation/compliance, health and safety, police disciplinary, courts martial, inquests and public inquiries. Richard Hearnden is a criminal practitioner who has appeared for the Crown and on behalf of the accused in five reported cases, three of which are cited in the 2011 edition of Archbold. Richard has led, and has been led, in increasingly serious and complex trials over the past few years. His main areas are organised crime, fraud and sexual offences. Richard’s most serious work tends to be for the prosecution: he is on the Attorney General’s B Panel and the CPS Rape List. He is instructed by the CPS Serious Crime Group, Central Fraud Group and Special Casework. Fraud and organised crime – recent cases: British Airways fraud – leading counsel for the Crown in a white-collar fraud trial lasting six weeks in the summer of 2010. The first defendant was convicted of operating a fraudulent travel agency by selling top-end air tickets at reduced prices by manipulating the company’s complex booking system, benefiting in the sum of about £2m. Tax evasion conspiracies – junior counsel in a four-week duty evasion trial whereby two lorry drivers and five other conspirators frequently smuggled contraband tobacco to UK warehouses through the Channel ports. Instructed in a seven-handed tobacco handling and warehousing case in the West Country. Travelex fraud – prosecuted a nine-handed bureaux de change conspiracy, where fraudsters attempted to steal quarter of a million pounds from Heathrow Airport branches. Sexual offences – recent cases: child sex abuse ring – junior prosecuting counsel in the trial of three men who had raped six members of their own family from a very young age over a period of almost 30 years. All three men were convicted after a five-week trial in the autumn of 2010. Forced marriage rape – prosecuted a man who had forced a woman into a sham Islamic marriage before raping her, imprisoning her and causing her serious injury. He was convicted, sentenced to imprisonment and ordered to pay almost £100,000 in compensation to his victim. Richard also prosecuted three other rape trials in 2010, securing convictions in each case. Richard has also defended in sexual cases involving young and very young children.

Called 1998.