Mark is a member of Chambers' Local Authority Team and is regularly instructed to prosecute individuals and corporations for trading standards, planning, environmental, fraud, consumer safety and other regulatory offences. He advises and represents prosecuting authorities on CJA and PoCA restraint and confiscation issues at all stages of investigation and prosecution and has extensive experience of prosecuting multi-agency litigation. Mark is a CPS grade 3 prosecutor and Middle Temple advocacy trainer who regularly provides bespoke training to Local Authority lawyers and investigators.

Mark's defence practice involves serious allegations including those of violence, sexual offences, fraud and drugs. He also defends at Courts Martial in the UK and abroad and conducts Judicial Review and appellate work in the Administrative Court and in the Court of Appeal respectively.

Before pupillage and in his first years in practice Mark worked with international human rights NGO Interights, for the human rights department of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina and for a French humanitarian aid NGO in Kabul, Afghanistan. He also worked on the first application of PKK leader Abdulah Ocalan to the ECHR and more recently has monitored criminal trials in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey, for the Kurdish Human Rights Project. He is instructed on an Armenian application to the European Court of Human Rights.

 
Recent and notable cases

R v X - Prosecuting £250,000 multi-identity fraud for Local Authority in case involving sophisticated identity document forgery.

R v X - Defending in allegation of causing death by careless driving.

R v X - Prosecution of landlord in his appeal against conviction and sentence for failing to comply with a s11 Housing Act notice.

R v X - Led by David Robson QC defending 18-year-old of good character accused of rape and sexual assault. 17 counts of rape, sexual assault and false imprisonment with four complainants.

R v X - Primary school teacher charged with possession with intent to supply ecstacy, ketamine and 1/2 kilo of cocaine, together with money laundering (over £45,000 in cash). Acquitted.

R v K - instructed to advise and represent London Local Authority in multi-agency prosecution of benefit fraud of over £43k allegedly committed by husband and wife team.

R v X - Prosecuting one of a chain of London restaurants for food safety offences.

R v T - Crown Court and Court of Appeal representation as well as Judicial Review of CPS decision to persist in prosecution of a young man for s5 SOA 2003 rape of a child instead of an offence contrary to ss9 and 13, in circumstances where sexual intercourse was willing on both sides and where the Crown accepted the 17-year-old defendant believed the complainant to be 15 years old. "Mr Himsworth ... put his submissions with great clarity and extremely ably" per Latham LJ.

R v Anderson - Appearing for the defence. Allegation of two s18 offences (wounding and GBH) by defendant claiming self-defence but conceding having armed himself with an axe and having deployed bleach into the complainant's eyes. Acquitted.

R v Kolendowicz - Prosecuting 7-year multi-identity benefit fraud on behalf of two London Boroughs and the DWP, in which defendant initally purported to be 'mute by the visitation of god'. Total overpayment over £92,000. Confiscation (under CJA) in excess of £225,000 plus costs.

R v L - Appearing for the defence in a rape allegation. Chelmsford Crown Court. Acquitted.

R v Hooper - Prosecuting for London Local Authority Trading Standards Department in case involving in excess of £200,000 worth of illegally-copied CDs and DVDs.

R v X - Prosecuting roofing firm for aggressive trading practices.

R v A (and others) - Led junior counsel in 3-month terrorism trial resulting from Operation Overamp.  Allegations related to "The Bridge to China Town" arrests and terrorist training in the New Forest and Lake District. Woolwich Crown Court.

R v X - Prosecution under the Enterprise Act for persistently poor trading practices.
 
R v X - credit card fraud valued at over £1,000,000 involving bulk orders of vintage wines, champagnes and designer clothing from France and Italy.

R v F - defending 43-year-old of good character on allegation of causing the death by dangerous driving of his pillion passenger, who was his 13-year-old daughter.

R v X - defending of consent in a sexual assault allegation in which railways employee was found by off-duty police inspector fellating a comatose passenger.