Fiona Jackson

Year of Call: 1998

Fiona Jackson practises in fraud and money laundering, proceeds of crime, civil and criminal asset recovery, international mutual legal assistance and regulatory work for the prosecution, defence and third parties. She has represented a wide range of prominent defence and prosecution clients, including prosecuting authorities, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the Assets Recovery Agency, the former National Crime Squad, and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), as well as a variety of police forces, foreign governments and receivers, in cases before the House of Lords, Court of Appeal, High Court, Crown Court and Magistrates’ Court.

Her experience ranges from hearings involving restraint, receivership, confiscation, significant cash seizure and asset forfeiture, to major fraud, money laundering and economic crime trials. In the area of general crime, Fiona has been instructed as counsel for the prosecution and defence in cases spanning the entire criminal spectrum from murder and violent crime, to dishonesty, burglary and firearms offences, along with medicines, drugs and mental health cases. She has been appointed to the Attorney General’s Panel of Prosecuting Advocates (B list), the SFO’s List of Counsel (B panel) and is a Grade 3 prosecutor on CPS London’s External Advocates Scheme.

Fiona is often instructed because of her ability to offer “cradle-to-grave” advice and representation on a case, from defending and prosecuting pre-charge restraint proceedings at the outset to dealing with confiscation issues and linked civil recovery proceedings at the conclusion of a case.

A regular lecturer on proceeds of crime issues and contributor to the leading textbook “Confiscation and the Proceeds of Crime”, Fiona is an elected member of the Bar Council, the Criminal Bar Association Committee and the South Eastern Circuit Bar Mess Committee, where she was the elected Recorder of the Circuit (2006-2007) and Circuit Junior (2003). Fiona is also a committee member of the Proceeds of Crime Lawyers’ Association, the Chairwoman of the Association of Women Barristers, and was the Chairwoman of the 2009 Bar Conference.

Notable Cases

  • R v Smith (2011) Instructed (as led junior) by the Attorney General of the Turks & Caicos Islands to pursue confiscation against one of the Caribbean’s biggest ever fraudsters, convicted of defrauding over 6000 victims in a $220m Ponzi scheme
  • R v Sophocleous and Collins (2010-2011) Instructed (as led junior) by CPS in confiscation proceedings arising from cheating the public revenue of over £14 million in a criminal enterprise and where one defendant was an accountant.
  • R v Evans and Cairns (2009-2011) Instructed (as led junior) by RCPO/CPS in complex restraint and confiscation proceedings involving a highly-sophisticated money laundering operation filtering criminal proceeds of millions of pounds through Hong Kong via Gibraltar and through a solicitor’s account in the UK, with laundering of two separate MTIC frauds through Gibraltar to the UK utilising shell companies to deal in property.
  • R v X; R v Y (2010) Instructed by the CPS in each case, on behalf of the Dutch and Italian Governments respectively, to seek urgent ex parte restraint orders in the Crown Court under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (External Requests and Orders) Order 2005 to prevent dissipation of multi-million pound assets from this jurisdiction.  The first case concerned allegations of money laundering of the proceeds of an extortion racket; the second, allegations of money laundering of the proceeds of a long-running international conspiracy to illegally export stolen Italian archaeological artefacts and a linked conspiracy to receive stolen goods.
  • Hill v Greater Manchester Police (2010) Instructed by the GMP and successfully opposing a second Crown Court appeal against an order forfeiting a high-value cheque seized at a bank, where the case involved a national bank and an appellant who historically opened an account in a false identity but to whom the funds had been returned by an independent adjudicator.  This highly unusual case required careful interpretation of the bank’s statutory duties and discretion to act in conflict with the appellant’s purported instructions, together with analysis of the bank’s money laundering reporting obligations and actions in conjunction with SOCA’s consents to transact.
  • Serious Fraud Office v King ([2009] 1 WLR 718; [2008] 1 WLR 2634) Instructed (as led junior) for the SFO in the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords appeal in a case concerning a Letter of Request by a foreign prosecutor in connection with criminal investigations/proceedings. The House of Lords held that the Crown Court’s jurisdiction to make a restraint and disclosure order following a request by a foreign prosecutor under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (External Requests and Orders) Order (SI 2005 No 3181) was restricted to property located within England and Wales.  The case has returned to the Crown Court in 2010 and 2011 for further litigation.
  • R v Hussain and others (2007-2011) Prosecuting (as led junior) multi-handed trial, appeal and confiscation of international steroids and counterfeit drugs enterprise. Two defendants’ appeals against conviction on part of the indictment in relation to controlled drugs clarified the law, namely that a person in possession of controlled drugs who intended to supply them outside the jurisdiction did not commit an offence (the Judge did not give the jury a direction to consider this as an option on the facts): [2010] 2 Cr App R. 11
  • R v Halai, Haywood, Patino and others (2006-2009) Prosecuting (as led junior) multi-handed trial, confiscation and appeals of multi-million pound global medicines counterfeiting ring.  Two separate appeals led to reported decisions of principle: the first, R v Haywood and others ([2009] 2 Cr App R (S) 62) reaffirmed sentencing principles for significant quantities of counterfeit drugs; the second, R v Patel and another (The Times, 19th November 2009), clarified that where medicinal products were intended for sale to end users outside the European Community, Sch. 3(1) of the Medicines for Human Use (Marketing Authorisations Etc.) Regulations (SI 1994 No 3144) had no application.
  • De La Rue International Ltd v Loch Defending (as led junior) civil claim against former employee involving over half a million pounds
  • ARA v Djavaheri and others Acting for ARA in claim of over £600,000 in civil recovery proceedings
  • ARA v Devereaux and Devereaux Acting for ARA in claim of nearly £100,000 in civil recovery proceedings
  • ARA v Henry Defending civil recovery claim following linked criminal proceedings
  • R v Morris and others Defending extensive restraint proceedings in High Court, linked to major money laundering trial
  • R v Gill Defending substantial confiscation proceedings relating to conspiracy to defraud a building society
  • R v Johnson and others Prosecuting (as led junior) drugs and money laundering conspiracy
  • R v Keenan and others Prosecuting (as led junior) multi-handed trial and confiscation of counterfeit Viagra/Kamagra conspiracy
  • R v Green and others Prosecuting (as led junior) multi-handed global money laundering conspiracy
  • R v Birks and others Defending significant application for confiscation following trial on corruption charges (aka “Donnygate”)
  • Re Pujalte and others Acting for National Crime Squad in application to forfeit almost half a million pounds in cash
  • R v Hughes, Anderson and others Acting for Customs in High Court and Court of Appeal on powers of management receivers to sell assets to pay costs