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Alphege Bell

Alphege Bell succeeds in yet another high level Encro Chat drugs case. His client was unanimously acquitted on all counts in less than 90 mins.

25/08/2023

This was an extremely challenging case as part of operation Venetic. It was brought by a specialist police investigation unit and specialist counsel. The scale of the material to be considered ran to many 1000s of pages. It involved industrial quantities and multiple kilos of cocaine heroin as well of enormous quantities of cash.

The case required a very deep level of understanding of the unique operation of Encrochat devices and the configuration in respect of the data pack that was being relied by the Crown to establish attribution. There was detailed and forensic cross examination of the crown’s expert which required an engineering level of understanding of the cell site data and issues of attenuation.

The defence case when presented was compelling and forceful to the extent that the jury acquitted the defendant unanimously on all counts in under 90 minutes.

Alphege was instructed by Rachael Archer from Wainwright Cummins.

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