Miles Bennett

Consumer; crime – general; intellectual property.

Miles has specialised for the last 20 years in consumer Law (criminal, regulatory and advisory) trade mark infringement, copyright theft, health and safety and inquests. As well as acting as leading junior counsel in large-scale consumer frauds he regularly appears in case stated, judicial review proceedings and the Court of Appeal in complex appellate work. Miles prosecutes for the OFT, numerous local authorities nationwide and private prosecution organisations such as FACT. Miles was leading junior counsel instructed on behalf of the OFT to prosecute the first ever Pyramid Promotional Scheme case in the UK under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (CPUTR’s) The case involved 11 defendants and a scheme involving thousands of participants in the South West of England. The scheme collapsed with losses of £21m. Miles defends major Plc’s in the retail sector, (in particular the supermarket sector) companies, directors and individuals. Miles was junior defence Counsel in R (Birmingham CC) v Tesco Stores Ltd a case involving the national prosecution of a major retailer over multi-million pound allegations of misleading commercial practices in the promotion and sale of strawberries. Miles is a contributing editor in Kirk and Lewin’s ‘Pink Book’, one of the leading practitioner text books on Consumer Law and is a regular speaker at the annual TSI conference. Miles has recently appeared as junior defence counsel in one of the few prosecutions for corporate manslaughter. He regularly appears at inquests and was recently instructed for a project managing company at an inquest into the deaths of four construction workers at Great Yarmouth.

Christs Hospital; Hull University (1985 LLB 2(1)).