John Lloyd-Richards

Home > People > Barristers > John Lloyd-Richards

Overview

John Lloyd-Richards specialises in Criminal Law and has a busy Prosecution and Defence practice covering the South-East, the Midlands and London. John is regularly instructed in cases involving large scale conspiracies, serious violence, dishonesty, drug supply, public disorder, sexual offences and those where fatalities are suffered in road traffic accidents.

John’s excellent level of preparation and robust cross-examination style has been commented on favourably by the judiciary.

John is a CPS Panel Advocate:

General Crime (Level 4)
Member of CPS Rasso Approved Panel

Crime

John Lloyd-Richards both Prosecutes and Defends across the broad spectrum of criminal offences.

In his prosecution practice, John has experience both of leading and being led in large-scale multi handed conspiracies. Examples of those involve conspiracies to transfer firearms and ammunition; drugs; and aggravated burglaries.

John has substantial defence experience involving sexual offences, fraud, money laundering, serious violence and supply of drugs on a large scale. He has also regularly represented lay clients in complex multi-handed cases.

In his defence practice John has a particular expertise in cases which arise out of fatal road traffic collisions having successfully represented a number of defendants facing prosecution for causing death by dangerous or careless driving.

John is also regularly instructed in cases involving causing or allowing a child to suffer serious physical harm. One such case involved a mother accused of causing 26 different fractures to her 8-week-old son. John was led in this matter concluding with the Court being persuaded to stay the indictment as an abuse.

John is familiar with dealing with evidence of experts in a variety of disciplines including varied medical fields, accident reconstruction, vehicle examination, forensic and document interrogation (e.g. ESDA testing).

John also has experience of being led in cases of manslaughter.

R v JJ, EM & TFC – Leading in the successful prosecution of conspiracy to transfer firearms and ammunition based on NCA expert evidence interpreting messaging in relation to firearms and distinguishing that from drugs messaging. NABIS expert evidence was also called to deal with the identification of firearms in videos alongside physical firearms recovered.
R v JB & GG – Prosecution of those running a ‘hydroponics factory’ based entirely on the evidence of Undercover Law Enforcement Operatives resulting in convictions for encouraging or assisting an offence believing it will be committed (s.45 Serious Crime Act 2007).
R v ST – Led representing a mother accused of serious injury by way of multiple fractures to an infant under 8 weeks old. Court persuaded to stay the indictment as an abuse of process.
R v PC [2022] EWCA Crim 542 – Instructed for the Appellant, Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, reported as follows: this appeal against sentence raises the question of whether or not an extended sentence under s. 279 SA 2020 can be passed on an offence that is specified for the purpose of s. 306 in circumstances where the four-year term condition prescribed in s. 280 is met only by taking into account offending on associated offences that are not so specified. It is an issue on which there appears to be conflicting appellate authority. The point is one of real significance. Many cases involve offending arising out of a combination of specified and unspecified offences. Judges need to know what offences can and cannot be taken into account for the purpose of identifying whether or not the appropriate custodial term would be at least four years long. Held: In so far as Casbolt is to be understood as suggesting that a court, when passing a sentence on a specified offence, cannot take into account by way of aggregation an associated (though unspecified) offence for the purpose of identifying the appropriate custodial term in s. 280, it is wrong. Pinnell/Joyce remains good law. The court when arriving at the appropriate custodial term can aggregate with a specified offence non-specified associated offences so as to reflect the defendant’s overall offending, subject always to the custodial term imposed on the specified offence not exceeding the statutory maximum and not infringing the principle of totality. https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2022/542.pdf
R v MS [2023] EWCA Crim 554 – Instructed for the respondent in the Court of Appeal on an appeal against sentence in respect of a conviction causing death by careless driving.
R v AB – Defending where a fatal collision occurred involving an ambulance colliding with a roundabout. Complex accident reconstruction and vehicle examination expert evidence was relied upon.
R v GL – Defending in a case involving a motorcycle striking a pedestrian in an urban environment who subsequently died. The defendant was acquitted after cross examination of the Crown’s accident reconstruction expert resulted in the case falling to a “halftime” submission.
R v MA – Defending in complex multi-handed drugs supply case where over 50kg of Class A drugs were shown to have been distributed.
R v TH – Secured an acquittal of a defendant charged with an affray where cross examination of a Crown witness resulted in the defence of self-defence being so clearly made out that the matter was withdrawn from the jury.
R v LT – Defending in a s.58 Terrorism Act 2000 case where a defendant with extreme right-wing views collected a substantial amount of information likely to be useful to someone preparing to commit an act of terrorism.

BA (Hons) University of Durham
LLB (Hons) University of Durham
BVC – Cardiff University

Inner Temple
Criminal Bar Association

News

21 Mar 2025

John Lloyd-Richards led Laura Hollingbery for the Crown in prosecuting a gang of armed robbers in the West Midlands with all six convicted.

John Lloyd-Richards led Laura Hollingbery for the Crown in prosecuting a gang who, between August 2021 and February 2022 targeted commercial properties including Public...