Paul Canfield
Call: 2019
Paul Canfield
Master of Laws, University of Law, Birmingham (2017-2018)
Bar Professional Training Course, University of Law, Birmingham (2017-2018): VC
Graduate Diploma in Law, University of Law, London (2015-2017): Commendation
Member of The Free Speech Union
North Eastern Circuit
Master of Science, Security and Risk Management, University of Leicester (2014)
Legal Aid Number: 02HCX
Contact
T: 01274 722 560 / 01274 722560
Paul is a Grade 2 prosecutor and practices in crime.
He appears regularly in the Crown Court for both the prosecution and defence, and has recently appeared in the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, to represent a client in an Attorney General’s Reference in 2024.
Reputation
Expertise
Criminal
Crime Paul completed his pupillage with the Crown Prosecution Service in 2019, where he spent a period of secondment with the Attorney General’s Office reviewing unduly lenient sentences. Prior to that, he worked as a police officer for over a decade specialising in operations.In the past, Paul led research into the police response to gang-related violence and future security threats as part of his Master’s degree. The findings were later published by Springer Publishing. Paul also attended Harvard Law School where he studied the principles of negotiation, and the University of St Andrews where he undertook studies in terrorism theories and practice.
During his time studying for the Bar Professional Training Course at the University of Law he received awards that culminated in the highest mark in Plea in Mitigation and the Master of Laws prize for the pro bono element of his studies. Paul also volunteered with the Personal Support Unit at the Birmingham Civil and Family Justice Centre.
Paul’s prior involvement in police operations, coupled with his experience with the Crown Prosecution Service, not only make him an effective prosecutor but ensures that when defending he is able to bring an invaluable insight into the prosecution case. In addition, he has acquired the critical analytical skills required to effectively evaluate complex disclosure and procedure.
Notable Cases
R v J (2025) - Paul was instructed by Miss White of Chivers Solicitors to represent a client accused of defrauding an individual of £93,000 over the course of one year ending in January 2021. The prosecution had to apply to adduce the complainant’s ABE under the Hearsay Gateways as the complainant had started to experience symptoms of dementia. Paul responded to the prosecution’s application by demonstrating through a careful review of the unused material, that not only had the police been acutely aware of the complainant failing memory in January 2023, his client was not charged until April 2025 with no proper explanation for the delay. This demonstrably prejudiced his client's right of a fair trial when the complainant may have been in a position to be cross-examined in 2023. The prosecution had further failed to obtain the necessary level of evidence on the day of trial, and couldn’t establish that the complainant’s memory had been unaffected at the time of providing her ABE whether due to the effects of medication or any degenerative memory loss that may have been present at the time. The prosecution offered no evidence.
R v D (2025) - Paul represented a client who was first on the indictment in a multi-handed trial where his client was accused of a Conspiracy to Supply Cocaine with a street value over £9,000,000. The case involved a significant amount of circumstantial evidence based of phone contacts and movements of the defendants in the many months after the National Crime Agency had identified and surveilled the drugs once they had arrived at a UK airport. As such, the underlying data had to be scrutinised to confirm any cell site and phone contacts to ensure that the evidence could be robustly challenged over the course of a three-week trial.
R v A (2025) - Represented a client at trial who had been accused of being a leading role of a conspiracy to supply class A drugs as part of a county-lines gang, which involved specific counts of Human Trafficking. Following a careful appreciation of the cell-site data made available and the contact between the parties, a resolution was reached. At the point of sentence, the submissions on behalf of his client had to include a number of aggravating features, including a further similar offence and a breach of a Suspended Sentence Order. After submissions, which included a forensic review of the phone data, the client was sentenced to 7.5 years imprisonment, which involved consecutive sentences but which would also benefit from a reduction due to time spent on remand and a substantial period of time on an electronically monitored curfew.
R v K (2025): Paul was instructed to represent a client who was found to be unfit to participate in the trial process. The client was alleged to have committed 33 offences of sexual assault. The case, without formal instructions from the client, was approached with care and dignity. There was a successful argument before the Crown Court that it wasn’t in the public interest for the Crown to proceed on all the allegations in the context of the recommendations for disposal put forward by the treating clinicians in light of four matters which had been committed separately for sentence. The argument was partly successful, but the Crown chose still to proceed on 15 allegations. Over four days, after careful cross-examination of the Prosecution’s witnesses during which the evidence was tested, Paul was able to demonstrate to the jury that the client could not have committed the act in respect of some of those allegations.
R V KY and Ors (2024): Paul, being led by Mr Hendron, successfully prosecuted 19 defendants of 24 defendants for separate conspiracies to Pervert the Course of Justice. The cases involved the first defendant, KY, running a Notice of Intended Prosecution or ‘NIP farm’ by advertising a scheme to members of the public to evade penalty points. The remaining defendants were customers of the scheme. https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/24770310.11-people-sentenced-speeding-fine-avoidance-scam/ .
R v H (2024) (Court of Appeal - Attorney General’s Reference): Represented a client whose sentence had been referred by the Attorney General in order for a sentence imposed by the Crown Court to be reviewed.
R v R (2024): Paul was instructed to represent a client with learning difficulties in a four day trial that involved the pre-recorded evidence of a child complainant, where a series of sexual acts allegedly had been committed upon her by her brother. Paul was able to undermine the credibility of the prosecution’s case, resulting in acquittals for his client.
R v K (2024): Paul represented a client accused of a number of offences including rape, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, strangulation and coercive and controlling behaviour within a marital relationship. Preparing for trial involved an expert being instructed to review the client’s phone once it had been released by the police in order to undermine the credibility of the allegations. The client was acquitted on all nine counts.
R v R and R (2024): Secured acquittals for the second defendant following a trial that involved an allegation of administering cannabis or spice in order to rape the complainant.
R v B (2023): Paul represented a client accused of Witness Intimidation and other matters. Following a successful Application to Exclude the pre-recorded evidence of one witness under S78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, and cross-examination of the remaining witness, after a half-time finding by the judge his lay client was acquitted of all allegations.
R v M (2023): Instructed by Mr Chowdhury from Highgate Solicitors, Paul represented a client who faced a seven count indictment covering historic sexual offences, which included three counts of rape, Paul was able to secure acquittals on four of the seven counts. Two acquittals were secured following a successful half-time submission that followed careful cross-examination of the complainant. The submission of no case to answer covered the relevant law at the time and the presumptions based on the age of the defendant when the allegations took place. Also, doli incapax was a live issue and properly placed before the court as a subsidiary argument which avoided the indictment being amended.
R v B (2023) - Paul successfully secures acquittals after trial for his client who faced two historic allegations of Engaging in Sexual Activity in the Presence of a Child.
R v N and P (2023): Paul secured convictions for producing cannabis after a five day trial involving two defendants. Both defendants were found in a cannabis farm with an estimated value of cannabis of up to £475,000.
R v I (2023): Paul successfully secured an acquittal for his client accused of rape following a half-time submission.
R v B (2023): Paul, having been instructed by Michelle Wood of Blackwells Solicitors secured an acquittal on 3 January 2023 for a 80 year old client that had been accused of strangling his neighbour after several inconsistencies with the prosecution’s case were highlighted.
R v N (2022): While represting a client accused of burglary, Paul raised several issues with potential breaches of Code D of PACE and that the enhanced images provided by the Prosecution further supported the defence expert’s findings, that his client hadn’t committed the offence. The Prosecution offered no evidence on day 2 of the trial.
R v M (2022): Client accused of Threatening Another with a Bladed Article where three witnesses had alleged that the client had threatened another person with a knife — Instructed by Alex White of Alastair Bateman Solicitors. Paul and those that instructed him were able to establish and follow lines of enquiry that the police had neglected to pursue, including further witnesses and CCTV evidence that hadn’t been seized. Once this undermining evidence was provided to the Crown no evidence was offered after review.
R v H (2022) : Successfully opposed a pre-trial hearsay application under section 116(2)(a) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, resulting in the Crown offering no evidence on a single count of Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm against the client’s ex-partner. The relevant circumstances of how the hearsay evidence had been adduced affected the fairness of the trial.
R v B (2022) : Successfully opposed a pre-trial hearsay application under section 116(2)(a) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 by the Crown to adduce several pieces of hearsay evidence including disclosures, made to third-parties, captured on police Body Worn Cameras and within 999 calls. This resulted in the Crown offering no evidence on six counts alleging Assault and Making Threats to Kill against the client.
R v M (2022): A defendant had been charged with driving offences along with possession of a bladed article. Through robust cross-examination of the arresting officer and the use of expert evidence, Paul secured acquittals on the driving offences for the client.
R v Ajmal (2022): On an appeal against sentence of 29 weeks’ immediate imprisonment for Possession of a Bladed Article and multiple counts of drugs’ possession, Paul demonstrated to the appeal court that the sentence had been manifestly excessive. It was reduced to a 12-month Community Order with requirements.
R v Geddes (2021): Paul secured a conviction for Wounding with Intent against a defendant. This required numerous disclosure requests having to be addressed during the trial process after the defendant decided to represent himself. https://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/news/crime/rastrick-thug-jailed-for-10-years-after-causing-life-threatening-injuries-to-woman-trapped-in-debt-3367321
R v Butt (2021): Prosecution junior (led by Stephen Wood QC) prosecuted the defendant for Murder and two matters of Attempted Wounding with Intent. The case involved numerous witnesses who all saw the events unfold as the defendant used a motor car to run over his victim. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-56860006
R v Gedge (2021): Conviction secured against a defendant who threatened to kill his uncle as he robbed him at knifepoint in his own home. https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/crime/violent-criminal-locked-up-for-ten-years-for-knifepoint-robbery-of-his-uncle-at-his-home-in-leeds-3453435
Clerks
