Thomas Beardsworth

Tom is building a criminal and civil practice across Chambers’ core specialisms.

The core of Tom’s practice is criminal defence and prosecution. As sole counsel, Tom has represented defendants accused of false imprisonment, Class A drugs offences and serious violence. Tom recently secured the discontinuance of proceedings in one case by challenging the admissibility of confession evidence, and in another by making representations concerning the ‘modern slavery’ defence. His recent prosecution instructions include robbery, affray and a two-handed fraud. He prosecutes regulatory crime for local authorities including trademark offences and offences relating to Mail Forwarding Businesses.

Tom has a growing civil and advisory practice. He has a particular interest in the exercise of investigative powers and the civil recovery of the proceeds of crime. He has represented the Metropolitan Police in civil applications, including asset forfeiture applications brought under Part 5 of POCA. He is currently instructed by the Department for Transport, led by Jonathan Kinnear KC, to advise on several matters arising from the train operating companies’ erroneous prosecution of fare evasion offences over many years.

Before coming to the Bar, Tom worked for five years as a financial journalist at Bloomberg. Among the topics he wrote about were the recapitalisation of European banks, litigation finance and the impact of sanctions against Russian entities in the bond market. His reporting about Greensill Capital was cited by the 2021 Parliamentary inquiry.