Mr B was on trial before Southwark Crown Court for Robbery and Common Assault. Had he been convicted of Robbery he would have been looking at a starting point of 4 years in prison.

However, at trial he was skilfully represented by William Paynter who successfully argued that an ‘adverse inference’ should not be drawn following Mr B’s ‘no comment’ interview at the police station. Mr B was acquitted (found not guilty) by the jury of the more serious Robbery charge, and instead of going to prison he received a lenient medium level community order after he was convicted of a simple assault.

In achieving this successful result, William Paynter recognised the valuable and thorough case preparation work of Catherine Mescall and James Chaplin, without whose work the not guilty on the Robbery charge would have been much more difficult.