Martin Khoshdel

Martin did his pupillage in Crime and had a predominant criminal practice covering General Crime. He quickly developed courtroom experience and conducted very serious cases. He has focused his practice to accept instructions representing defendants charged with serious criminal offences and accepts private instructions in criminal matters. Martin's practice covers homicide, serious violence, serious sexual offences, and serious financial crime cases.

Examples of his work over the years include:

• R v Nezir Bebiqi [August 2016] - represented the Defendant taxi driver accused of 3 offences of Assault by Penetration. The case involved S.41 YJCEA applications to question the complainant on her sexual history as matters had relevance to the issues in the trial. The Defendant was acquitted of all offences.
• R v Michael Lee [March 2017] - represented the Defendant facing 6 Counts of historic rape allegations against his daughter. The trial concerned numerous complaint witnesses, as well as challenging cross examination of the complainant. The Defendant was found Not Guilty of all charges.
• R v Omar Mohamed [April 2017] – represented the Defendant charged with s.18 GBH. The defendant assaulted his cellmate repeatedly and persistently kicking and stamping his head, even whilst unconscious. The victim was left with life threatening and life changing injuries; he was also left in a coma for a number of weeks.
• R v Muhammed Ahmed [June 2017] – defended a male accused of causing grievous bodily harm to his partner’s 6 months old baby. The case centred around medical expert evidence where Martin cross examined 4 Doctors on the cause of the injuries in the absence of any medical evidence called by the defence. Martin secured his acquittal.
• R v Mohamed Mohamed and others [January to February 2018] - led junior representing a defendant charged with Conspiracy to Supply Class A Drugs in the Aldershot area. The trial took place for 2 months involving significant telephone material, cell site evidence, expert evidence, bad character applications, and surveillance. Martin and his leader secured his acquittal.
• R v Ayoub Belkaid [2018] EWCA Crim 2488 – appeal against sentence where the sentencing Judge wrongly went beyond the agreed basis of plea. The appellant was investigated for the Paris terrorist attacks which did not result in any evidence linking him to terrorist offences, but did link him to a large scale fraud factory in Belgium which had supplied travel documents to the terrorists involved in the Paris attack.
• R v Darryl Lee [October 2018] - represented the Defendant charged with Attempting to Cheat the Public Revenue in that he made a fraudulent claim for VAT in the sum of £4.6m.
• R v Crystal Padmore Anderson and others - [January 2019] - represented the first defendant charged with False Imprisonment of two complainants, Conspiracy to Wound with Intent (s.18 GBH), and other drugs offences. The trial lasted two weeks involving very lengthy cross examination of the complainants. The defendant was acquitted of the violent offences bar the drugs matters.
• R v Olashile Balogun [November 2019] - represented the defendant facing charged with Sexual Assault. The case involved DNA evidence, significant bad character evidence, cell site, telephone evidence, and identification evidence.
• R v Abdirahman Abdikarim and others [January to February 2020] - led junior represented the defendant charged with Attempted Murder of two individuals. The case involved voluminous telephone evidence, cell site, bad character, severance of counts, and cut throat defences. The defendant was acquitted of all offences.