Stephen Winberg

Year of Call: 1974

Specialist practice areas: Serious Crime, Regulation/Compliance

Coming from a background in both civil and criminal law, Stephen Winberg now specialises in criminal work for both prosecution and defence. His particular areas of expertise include cases involving murder, terrorism and serious fraud. Stephen also holds a pilot license and is instructed in aviation-related cases.

After pupillage with the now Lord Brown of Eaton under Heywood Stephen practised in the civil field, predominantly in personal injury work, with some crime. He then began to specialise in criminal defence and for approximately 25 years, at first as junior then as leader, was instructed in cases of murder, major terrorist trials, serious fraud and virtually every offence in the criminal calendar.

Some ten years ago he chose to concentrate on prosecution work and that built up so that e.g. he led for the crown in 2007/8 at Southwark Crown Court in a fraud which ultimately lasted nearly six months, followed by leading in a fraud at Leeds Crown Court, these followed by leading in an HMRC fraud at Birmingham, all these cases involving up to five defendants represented by 2 counsel, and all resulting in convictions.

In autumn 2006 he led for the Crown in the case of Whiteway & ors, a confiscation hearing at Southwark Crown Court which lasted approximately one month in all, prosecuting 4 defendants all represented by 2 counsel including qc, in which virtually every conceivable point of confiscation law was taken and which resulted in a benefit figure of 10 million pounds being found, a record for that HMRC department.

He has been cited as a "leader at the bar" in Chambers guide to the legal profession on numerous occasions.

He has appeared in the Court of Appeal criminal and civil divisions and the Divisional Court in criminal and civil matters on many occasions, and has continued on occasion to appear in contested civil matters in the High Court. He has acted as counsel to a public inquiry.

Some examples

He has been led for the defence in numerous cases of alleged murder, including e.g. a murder trial at Winchester led by John Mortimer QC, in which the defendant who had admitted strangling his wife and burying her under motorway was acquitted of murder and given a suspended sentence for manslaughter.

He then went on to lead for the defence in a number of murder cases at the Central Criminal Court, all of which resulted in acquittal of murder, one by half time submission. In one of those cases the defendant admitted in evidence that he had stabbed the victim some 19 times.

He was led at the Central Criminal Court in cases of alleged middle eastern terrorist bombings, then e.g. went on to lead himself in a case at that court where the defendant was alleged to have planted a bomb in a London restaurant-the bomb did not explode and his fingerprints were found on it.

His citations in Chambers were with reference to fraud, and an example of this was a VAT fraud at Southwark CC which lasted for some nine months, at that time a record. He prosecuted a series of rapes at the CCC, which ran into double figures-all resulted in conviction save one where the jury failed to agree.

He has appeared on many occasions in the Court of Appeal and Divisional Court, many of those cases have been reported in the law reports and one at least, Rv Gent, was a standard citation in Archbold for many years .

In 2005 he was appointed as counsel to the Hamill public inquiry into the killing of a catholic in Northern Ireland and served in that capacity for some three months