Matthew Edwards

Experience

Matthew qualified as a barrister in 2005. He worked for the Crown Prosecution Service for nine years in a range of different roles; delivering charging advice to the police, presenting cases in all types of hearings in court, and managing a range of serious and complex casework.

As a Specialist Prosecutor in the Specialist Fraud Division of the CPS, Matthew advised the City of London Police, regional police forces, HMRC and Department for Work and Pensions in relation to investigations concerning complex international fraud, bribery and corruption, money laundering, financial sanctions, export controls and tax evasion.

Prior to joining Capsticks Matthew worked as a Senior Associate in a boutique law firm with a particular focus on fraud, judicial review and disclosure.

Expertise

At Capsticks, Matthew has advised and led on a number of complex and sensitive investigations on behalf of the SRA and SWE. He regularly presents both interim and substantive hearings on behalf of those regulators involving allegations of serious professional misconduct that have often involved very complex evidential and procedural issues.

Notable Cases

• R v A & V – Advising on a multi-cell VAT repayment fraud involving suspects who set up over two hundred companies for the purpose of defrauding the revenue. The value of the fraud was in excess of £600K and a significant amount of evidence had to be obtained from European Jurisdictions.
• R v L – Prosecution of a Carbon Credit/Rare Earth Metal boiler room fraud in which several complainants were defrauded out of their life savings. A focused investigation resulted in a quick charging decision and an early guilty plea.
• R v B – Charging/reviewing lawyer in a factoring fraud where the victims, a global bank, were defrauded out of £2 million. The defendant pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
• R v G – Successful prosecution of a financial director for £1.5 million fraud/theft, sentenced to 7.5 years imprisonment.
• R v T – successful prosecution of a fraudulent estate agent, sentenced to 3 years imprisonment.
• R v W – joint private and public prosecution for offences of fraud, theft and perverting the course of justice.

Called to the Bar

2005

Qualifications

Bar Vocational Course (very competent), Manchester Metropolitan University 

LLB Law (2:1), University of Leicester

Memberships

Fraud Lawyers Association