In a trial which concluded this week after nearly twelve months, 18 SJS’ Siobhan Grey KC, leading Andy Evans, instructed by Osborne Knight solicitors, successfully defended their client of good character against allegations of Fraudulent Trading and Public Nuisance at common law.
The charges stemmed from her employment by what the twin prosecuting authorities, West Yorkshire Trading Standards and the Medical Health Regulatory Authority, alleged was a fake Covid testing lab set up in Halifax in 2021.
That business was alleged to have falsified tens of thousands of negative Covid-19 tests, having fraudulently gained access to a Government testing scheme to make profits of nearly seven million pounds in a matter of months.
The Prosecuting Authority also alleged that in doing so the Defendants had knowingly supplied their customers with false negative results, leading to their release from isolation with a consequent risk to the health of the public nationally.
The defence team collated and served bundles of defence material sifted from contemporaneous historic financial material, archived invoices and receipts, alongside targeted selection of material from a digitally recovered cache of over 19,000 pages of emails. This material formed the base of the submission to the jury that the Prosecution had misrepresented the Defendant’s role within the company, and that there was no evidence of her complicity or even knowledge of any illegality.
That jury was ultimately to be discharged pursuant to s46 CJA 2003 following allegations of jury tampering, leading the judge deliver verdicts himself to conclude one of the longest trials ever heard at Bradford CC, acquitting four of the five Defendants.
Guardian – “Fraudulent Covid-19 testing company”
For more information on Siobhan Grey KC , Andrew Evans and other members of the Criminal Department, please contact a member of the criminal clerking team on 0161 278 8262 or email crime@18sjs.com.