Richard Wood BA

Richard combines his responsibilities as Chambers' Head of Centre in Ipswich with a busy criminal practice throughout East Anglia. His background is of a broad range of serious crime. However, Richard wishes to continue the current trend of specialisation in serious fraud and regulatory work.

At the moment, Richard prosecutes and defends both white collar fraud and serious offences of dishonesty (for example, large scale thefts from employers by it employees in breach of trust; as well as "car ringing" conspiracies). Of course, this also often involves detailed and large scale investigations under the Proceeds of Crime Act 1992 in respect of which Richard has extensive experience.

 

Cases of interest include:

• R v L [2008] Chelmsford Crown Court - Junior Prosecutor (led by Richard Kelly) in a complex and high-value employee fraud. The Defendant was accused of fabricating over 3 million pounds worth of false orders in respect of Ministry of Defence procurement which were then presented to his employers, resulting in catastrophic losses
• R v H [2009] Ipswich Crown Court - prosecuting this case that involved large scale theft from his employee, the fruits of which he used to create an internet based business with huge turnover. This case involved a massive volume of documentation relating to his activities on "Ebay" and other internet trading sites
• R v B [2010] Ipswich Crown Court - prosecuting a case that involved fraud by a bank manager on his customers over an extended period of time, and again with a very large volume of material to work through in order to present the case to the Jury
• R v P [2010] Ipswich Crown Court - again a prosecution based upon fraudulent claims to a Government agency
• R v N [2010] Chelmsford Crown Court - defending, as Leading Junior, a multi-handed car ringing case involving a huge quantity of evidence covering a long period of time
• Representing a Defendant accused of various infringements of trademarks belonging to BBC Worldwide Ltd and Marvel Comics Inc
• Richard also acted in a Judicial Review of indeterminate sentencing and associated rehabilitation under the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003

In relation to Richard's regulatory work, he prosecutes for a number of local authorities in respect of the following legislative areas:

• Health and Safety
• Food Safety
• Environmental Protection
• Copyright and Trade Mark Protection
• Town and Country Planning.

As a consequence of his expertise in these areas, Richard often finds himself defending in such matters.

Interests:

Football (Bawdeswell FC) and cricket (Great Melton CC).