Mark Heywood KC leading Gregory Fishwick defended in this multi-company boiler room fraud that involved selling diamonds as investments. The Crown’s case was that a team of brokers including Lewis Bloor from The Only Way is Essex, used false identities and pressurised sales techniques to con elderly and vulnerable people from hundreds of thousands. The evidence against them included a purported confession that was excluded upon application by the Defence. The Crown also sought to include companies either side of the indictment period as evidence of bad character but this again was successfully resisted. The Defence managed to show that the Crown’s disclosure was fundamentally flawed. Having read the written submissions the Crown initially dispensed with their own expert who had valued the stones as nearly worthless. Having then considered the supplementary written submissions on disclosure the Crown had to concede that they could not continue to prosecute any of the defendants. Instructed by Bark & Co.
