Qualifications and Professional Associations
- St. Peter’s School, York
- LLB (Hons) (Newcastle University)
- Called to the Bar (Lincoln's Inn) (1998)
Areas of Specialisation
Rupert has a broad practice base which includes extensive experience in the areas of drugs importation and production, and fraud. Through this work he has detailed knowledge of confiscation procedures and the application of POCA 2003. Other defence work involved cases of serious violence and drugs supply.
Rupert believes in being actively involved in case management and many of his instructing solicitors have expressed how beneficial they find his involvement in preparing and advising from an early stage in the case.
Notable Cases:
Defence work includes major fraud and drug cases. Rupert has considerable experience and success in excluding evidence through detailed examination and analysis of chains of continuity. He is particularly skilled at breaking down a case through legal argument. Rupert is a formidable jury advocate, who is not afraid to present challenging instructions to a jury with a great deal of success.
R v Coates, Chelmsford Crown Court: Two day hearing to vacate guilty pleas in a large drug importation conspiracy. The case involved three experts, and complex cross-examination of previous solicitors and their in-house Crown Court advocate. At the conclusion of the hearing, HHJ Ball QC, presiding judge at Chelmsford stated "the Bench has enormous confidence in the Bar to represent defendants. Mr Gregory is an outstanding example of the Criminal Bar being able to pick up cases at short notice. His impeccable, eloquent submissions, and mastery of the case have been outstanding".
Vincent Stapleton v HMRC, High Court (Administrative Division): legally complex proceedings against HMRC in respect of a confiscation order for £2.8m, following a very large VAT carousel fraud.
R v Mark Day (Operation Nebula), Basildon Crown Court: lengthy proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act
R v Dawn Lawes, Oxford Crown Court: defending the death by careless driving of a pregnant policewoman, widely reported.
R v Oduguwa & Others, representing the lead Defendant in the largest ever fraud against an NHS trust.
R v Crawford [2008] EWCA Crim 1863; [2008] WLR (D) 287, the leading authority on cross-admissibility of bad character evidence.
R v Tontoh, defending the first ever prosecution for trafficking and exploiting a domestic servant into the UK. The Defendant was acquitted of people trafficking.
R v Smith (2008), in which Rupert successfully persuaded the Crown Court to dismiss eight out of nine counts of burglary on the basis that the Crown couldn’t prove continuity relating to any of the evidence on those counts. They were later reinstated by the Court of Appeal, but dropped by the Prosecution.
R v Harrison & Others, conspiracy to blackmail a large Ipswich crime family.
R v Rouse & James (Led Junior), a Network Rail fraud case which involved the creation of ghost employees and false overtime claims.
R v Osman & Others, a conspiracy to defraud banks and high street retailers through large-scale credit card cloning.
R v Kamuhanda & Oths (Led Junior), a 14-handed conspiracy to export stolen cars of high value in containers to Africa. Each of these cases involved the consideration of 8,000-15,000 pages of evidence. Rupert also has considerable experience in dealing with cases involving procedural irregularities.
R v Samuels, successfully defended in a multi-handed conspiracy to produce and supply several kilos of crack cocaine.
R v Smith which dealt with corrupted DNA samples.
R v Hedges, s.18 assault using a dangerous dog as a weapon. Causation involving use of a dog as a weapon questioned using expert evidence.
Noteable prosecution cases involve:
Being an eight-handed robbery trial at Wood Green Crown Court (Led Junior)
Prosecuting a Muslim cleric for abusing a child in the mosque (Snaresbrook Crown Court); a two-handed homophobic GBH trial (Basildon Crown Court) and threats to kill made whilst in possession of a firearm.
