Penelope Small

Year of Call: 1992

Penelope Small’s background spans the range of criminal work, and she regularly acts for both prosecution and defence in the Court of Appeal, Crown Court, Youth Court and Magistrates Court. Her particular specialties are financial crime, cases involving the forfeiture or confiscation of assets, and money laundering and drugs trafficking offences.

She has represented the prosecution, defence, receivers and third parties in relation to confiscation, restraint and receivership cases, including successfully defending clients facing multi-million pound confiscation orders. Recent highlights include appearing for the appellant in R v O’Donoghue, the leading case on applications for Certificates of Inadequacy where a hidden asset finding has been made at the confiscation hearing. Penelope was also involved in the first successful application in the North East under the provisions of section 15 of the Drug Trafficking Act 1994.

A former counsel to HM Customs and Excise, and a regular choice of the DTI, Penelope regularly lectures on proceeds of crime issues. Her practice also covers violent crime, dishonesty, mental health, trade marks and trading standards offences, health and safety and environmental offences.