Matthew Sorel-Cameron

Call: 2009

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  • Matthew is extremely able. He can see the decisive points in any given case, prioritise them, and confront or deal with them. He is always well prepared. He has distinctly professional manner in the court when presenting his case and any submissions made. He is a top-quality junior barrister in crime.

    Legal 500 (2023)
  • He has superb intellectual ability supported by a real talent for advocacy.

    Legal 500 (2021)
Matthew Sorel Cameron

Personal profile

Matthew Sorel-Cameron is a robust and persuasive advocate advising on Business Crime & Fraud, Serious & Organised Crime, Serious Violence, Sexual Offences, Road Traffic Offences and Inquests & Inquiries. He brings a forensic approach to cases. His skill, tactical acumen and judgement have helped him develop a successful and diverse practice.

He has significant experience in representing vulnerable clients and handling vulnerable witnesses. Matthew defends and is also regularly instructed to represent the Crown Prosecution Service.

He is Grade 4 on the CPS Advocate Panel for General Crime, and is on the Fraud, Serious Crime and RASSO panels.

Recommendations

Matthew is extremely able. He can see the decisive points in any given case, prioritise them, and confront or deal with them. He is always well prepared. He has distinctly professional manner in the court when presenting his case and any submissions made. He is a top-quality junior barrister in crime.

― Legal 500 (2023)

He has superb intellectual ability supported by a real talent for advocacy.

― Legal 500 (2021)

Business Crime & Fraud

Matthew is regularly instructed to prosecute and defend in cases of Business Crime & Fraud.

Featured cases

  • R v X and others (2020 – ongoing) – Multi-million-pound fraud and conspiracy to facilitate unlawful immigration. Prosecuting five defendants.
  • R v K, A and B (2018) – International money laundering, perverting the course of justice. Prosecuted three defendants, one of whom was an accountant, in relation to the attempted smuggling of £320k in cash out of the country and subsequent efforts to deceive the authorities as to its origin. At trial, the defendants claimed that the money comprised charitable donations destined for Kurdish refugees in Syria.
  • R v G & C (2017) – Instructed to defend a man charged with fraudulently evading of over £400k of duty on imported tobacco, and laundering £200k in cash.
  • R v J (2017) – Instructed to prosecute a sophisticated £130k breach of trust fraud committed by a bank employee on the bank’s customers.
  • R v W (2017) – Instructed to prosecute a man charged with repeatedly defrauding the customers of his vehicle renovation business. The defendant pleaded guilty the day before the trial was due to start.
  • R v F and W (2016) – Instructed to defend a woman accused of receiving housing benefit of over £30k for a house which she legally owned.
  • R v D and others (2016) – Instructed to defend a man charged in a national conspiracy to commit fraud by using cloned fuel cards.
  • R v H (2015) – Instructed to defend a man charged with defrauding a dying friend of £30k.

Serious & Organised Crime

Matthew is increasingly being instructed in cases involving organised crime, and is instructed by the CPS’s Complex Casework Unit

Featured cases

  • R v X and others (2021 – ongoing) – Instructed to prosecute this four-handed gun-point, knife-point kidnap and blackmail.
  • Operation Micco (2021 – ongoing) – Instructed as leading prosecution counsel (leading Sophie Quinton-Carter) prosecuting charges of modern slavery, child abduction and conspiracy to commit fraud. Prosecuting four members of the same family for modern slavery and linked offences committed over a number of years.
  • R v X and others (2020–2022) – Instructed as junior prosecution counsel (led by Ken Millett) in this seven-handed prosecution of a North London gang in relation to conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent to endanger life.
  • Operation Cedar (2019-2020) – Instructed as leading prosecution counsel (leading Joseph Bird) in a ten-handed, million pound conspiracy to steal and burgle, concerning a highly organised and professional crime group responsible for numerous ATM thefts and millennium burglaries. Complex cell-site, vehicle identification and ANPR evidence presented at trial.
  • R v X and others (2020 – ongoing) – Instructed as junior prosecution counsel (led by Edward Renvoize) in a ten-handed drugs conspiracy operating in Ipswich and North Essex.
  • R v X and others (2019–2022) – Instructed as prosecution counsel in relation to a nine-handed, multinational industrial scale cannabis farm.
  • R v A and others (2019–2021) – Instructed as prosecution counsel in a three-handed case in which individuals were targeted, tracked long distances and attacked by an organised group of robbers who took expensive watches worth tens of thousands of pounds each.
  • Operation Pibera (2019) – Instructed as junior prosecution counsel (led by Kate Bex QC) in this human trafficking case. The case represented the first time that county lines drug dealers were convicted at trial for trafficking young and vulnerable runners to deal drugs. Complex issues of law and cell-site evidence arose at trial.
  • R v P (2018) – Instructed to prosecute a man caught smuggling £1.5 million of crystal meth into the UK (instructed by CPS CCU case).
  • R v S (2018) – Conspiracy to breach immigration law and perverting the course of justice. Instructed to prosecute a defendant who conspired with others to arrange a sham marriage and maintain that fiction to the authorities. The woman he married was a victim of human trafficking and modern slavery.
  • Operation Dryad (2016) – Child sexual exploitation. Instructed as junior prosecution counsel (led by Christopher Paxton) in a nine-week trial of five defendants charged with rape, sexual activity with children and prostitution.
  • Operation Dryad (2016) – Instructed as junior prosecution counsel (led by Christopher Paxton) in a multi-handed four-week trial concerning conspiracy to supply Class B drugs by an Iranian gang.

Serious Violence

Matthew has substantial experience of both defending and prosecuting cases of Violent Crime, and Crime generally.

Featured cases

  • R v X (2021 – ongoing) – Instructed as junior prosecution counsel (led by Christopher Paxton QC) in an allegation of murder.
  • R v X (2021) – Instructed as junior prosecution counsel (led by Riel Karmy-Jones QC) in a high-profile attempted murder, in which a 15-year-old schoolboy shot a schoolmate in the face with a 12-bore shotgun when he was walking to school. The defendant received a 29-year extended sentence.
  • R v G and C (2021) – Instructed as junior prosecution counsel (led by Cyrus Shroff) in a manslaughter case in which a defendant assaulted a victim outside a nightclub causing his subsequent death. A co-defendant was convicted of assisting the defendant.
  • R v X (2021 – ongoing) – Money laundering, drug supply. Defending a man accused of drug supply and laundering almost ½ million pounds.
  • R v P (2020) – Section 18 GBH, aggravated burglary. Instructed to defend a mentally-disordered defendant charged with attacking his mother in her own home.
  • R v A and C (2019-2020) – Aggravated burglary, possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, robbery. Instructed to prosecute two men who chased after a farmer with a shotgun, and tried to force their way into a house whilst brandishing the shotgun before firing it into the house. One of the defendants also committed a car-jacking. Defendants received 15- and 12-year extended sentences respectively.
  • R v X and others (2020 – ongoing) – Instructed to prosecute a three-handed allegation of kidnapping.
  • R v C (2019) – Administering a stupefying drug with intent, false imprisonment, attempted child abduction. Instructed to prosecute a man who had entered the home of his estranged wife, taped her to a chair, threatened her with an imitation firearm, poisoned her and then took their five-year old daughter. The daughter gave evidence at trial. Defendant sentenced to 18-year extended sentence.
  • R v A (2019) – Attempted murder. Instructed to prosecute a man accused of the attempted murder of two prison guards.
  • R v L (2018) – Instructed to defend a man accused of possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence. The weapon was discharged in dangerous circumstances.
  • R v T (2018) – Planned knifepoint robbery with serious injuries. Instructed to prosecute a man who had set up an ambush robbery on an acquaintance. The acquaintance was repeatedly stabbed and left with life-changing injuries. Jogee principles were squarely engaged.
  • R v M (2017) – Robberies of convenience stores. Instructed to prosecute a man who had committed robberies on two convenience stores in Ipswich.
  • R v H and R (2017) – Instructed as junior prosecution counsel (led by Gerard Pounder, now HHJ Pounder) in this attempted murder case, where defendants were charged with attempting to murder three men in a car during a high-speed pursuit.
  • R v H (2017) – Perverting the course of justice. Instructed to defend a woman charged with falsely accusing her neighbour of assaulting her. A successful submission of no case was made.
  • R v M (2017) – Serious domestic burglary. Instructed to defend a man charged with burgling the home of his ex-partner whilst she and her children were present.

Sexual Offences

Matthew is increasingly being instructed in cases involving Sexual Offences:

Featured cases

  • R v X (2021–2022) – Child sex offences. Instructed to defend a woman accused of penetrative sexual offences against a child. Trial due to take place in 2023.
  • R v X (2021 – ongoing) – Rape. Instructed to prosecute a defendant charged with rape.
  • R v X (2021 – ongoing) – Assault by penetration. Instructed to prosecute a defendant charged with assault by penetration.
  • R v X (2021 – ongoing) – Historic child sex offences. Instructed to defend a man accused of historic sexual offences.
  • R v X (2020-2021) – Child sex offences. Instructed to defend a man charged with penetrative sexual activity with a child.
  • R v R (2019) – Attempted sexual communication with a child. Instructed to prosecute a defendant who attempted to engage children in sexual communication online.
  • R v D (2018) – Multiple sexual assault. Instructed to prosecute the manager of a bar/restaurant who had sexually assaulted young male workers.
  • R v K (2018) – Child sexual exploitation. Instructed as junior prosecution counsel (led by Christopher Paxton) in the prosecution a man accused of a series of rapes, sexual assaults and robberies against strangers, on a single morning in Norwich City Centre. The defendant received a life sentence after he was convicted at trial.
  • R v B (2018) – Sexual assault. Instructed to prosecute a man accused of sexually assaulting an ex-partner in her own home.
  • R v G (2017) – Sexual assault. Instructed to prosecute a man accused of sexually assaulting a woman in her own home.
  • Operation Dryad (2016) – Child sexual exploitation. Instructed as junior prosecution counsel (led by Christopher Paxton) in a nine-week trial of five defendants charged with rape, sexual activity with children and prostitution.

Road Traffic Offences

Matthew is regularly instructed to defend and prosecute complex private road traffic matters. He has extensive experience in making and resisting special reasons arguments and making arguments for exceptional hardship.

Featured cases

  • R v T (2020) – Successful appeal to the Crown Court of a man accused of no insurance.
  • R v M (2017) – Successfully defended a man accused of careless driving and failing to stop at the scene of an accident.
  • R v T (2015) – Instructed to prosecute a case relating to causing bodily harm by wilful misconduct when in charge of a vehicle, driving a lorry at high speed the wrong way around a one-way system on private land and running someone over causing horrific injuries. Successfully resisted an application to dismiss on the interpretation of the words ‘wilful misconduct’, whereupon the defendant pleaded guilty.
  • C v DPP (2013) – Presented a successful special reasons argument on appeal (the appellant only drove whilst over the limit because he had been assaulted, and was in fear of further assault).
  • C v DPP (2012) – Successfully resisted a drink driving appeal based on back calculation supported by UK’s leading expert on alcohol consumption and absorption.
  • R v C (2010) – Instructed to defend a school bus driver (also a local councillor) of driving carelessly and causing injury to schoolchildren passengers. Successful submission of no case.

Appeals

Featured cases

  • R v L (2016) – Successful appeal against sentence arguing misapplication of the sentencing guidelines.The sentence was reduced from 12- to six-months imprisonment.
  • R v Evans [2015] EWCA Crim 871 – Instructed to represent the appellant where his sentence was reduced from 16- to ten-months imprisonment.
  • Taffs v Chelmsford Crown Court [2014] EWHC 899 (Admin) – Instructed to represent the prosecutor in a judicial review challenging the Crown Court’s reasoning in dismissing the claimant’s appeal.

Education

  • Bar Vocational Course, City Law School: Outstanding
  • Graduate Diploma in Legal Studies, University of East Anglia: Commendation
  • BA (Hons) Philosophy, University College London: 2.1

Professional appointments

  • CPS Panel Advocate (General Crime) (Grade 4)
  • CPS Panel Advocate (RASSO)
  • CPS Specialist Panel Advocate (Fraud and Serious Crime) (Grade 3)

Memberships

  • East Anglian Bar Mess junior
  • CBA
  • South Eastern Circuit
  • Middle Temple

Publications

Corporate Crime, Lexis PSL, contributing author

Other expertise