Top tax barrister Robert Venables KC, 78, of Old Square Tax Chambers is currently facing three counts of dishonestly cheating the public revenue in criminal proceedings before a jury at Southwark Crown Court.
Our previous reporting of this case:
✍️ Jan 2025: Barrister accused of falsifying tax returns – the indictment revealed
✍️ May 2026: Trial date set for barrister accused of falsifying tax returns
✍️ May 2026: Barrister’s barrister tells jury: “There is nothing legally wrong with avoiding tax and exploiting loopholes”
✍️ May 2026: Wise gardener gives evidence in KC Tax Cheat case
✍️ June 2026: Venables’ Bookkeeper Gives Evidence in KC Tax Cheat Case
✍️ June 2026: HMRC’s criminal probe against Tax KC had “Red Risks”, jury told
✍️ June 2026: HMRC’s ‘menacing’ correspondence meets Tax KC’s threats of defamation, jury hears
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Reporting by freelance journalist Daniel Cloake
Robert Venables (left) with barrister Stuart Biggs KC outside Southwark Crown Court
Having thanked the jury for their “patience while we ironed out a few legal issues“, following the close of the prosecution case on Monday, the court heard evidence from the defendant himself.
Wearing a dark grey suit, with a pale blue shirt, Robert Venables KC took to the witness box at 2.15pm.
In a rather jovial spirit he jostled with the computer monitor mounted in front of him, and made sure to position himself as “I think two members of the jury can’t see me … it’s a very extended jury box“.
“You know the drill … you’re going to be in the witness box for a long time. Make yourself comfortable” warned his barrister, Stuart Biggs KC, who asked him questions over the following 135 minutes.
While sightlines may have been an issue I suspect the 12 members of the jury had no trouble hearing him. The four journalists observing from the public gallery certainly didn’t.
Venables explained that in the 1970s he had been “to a voice therapist provided free of charge by the NHS” before attending classes at night school which taught him “how to project my voice so that say 100 people in a lecture hall could hear me.“
The court was given a vivid picture of his early years. We were told he had grown up in Bolton upon Dearne, South Yorkshire, and how all the older male members of his family had worked in the coal mining business.
His father also had a side project raising pigs, whilst the mother raised the hens and ducks, in a small holding at the back of the house.
His dad had set “a good example that you had to work hard” Venables said, adding that it was a “wonderful house” and a “very loving family…we may not have had much money but we didn’t feel deprived“, he said.
The childhood house didn’t have electricity, but relied on gas or candles for lighting, and coal for heating. There was a toilet, not inside the house, but at the bottom of the yard – “that’s how things were in those days”.
Venables, now 78, was born in October 1947.
His father had “chased Germans round North Africa” during the Second World War, before later earning The Military Medal for his efforts helping to rescue New Zealand troops who had got stranded behind enemy lines when the front line collapsed.
Just as he was about to start school, age 5, his parents took him to one side and said “Robert, if you want anything in life you have to work for it“.
His younger brother Michael joined the Police College as a cadet, before becoming head of recruitment. The jury were told of his efforts to recruit more gay men into the force – “not gay women as there was plenty of them already.”
These efforts lead to the award of the Queen’s Police Medal, “not something given away with the cornflakes“, to him at Buckingham Palace.
The court was treated to a lengthy chronology of Robert Venables career, starting with his admission to Merton College, Oxford, as a result of being nominated for one of two “working class places“.
A big help in securing one of these coveted places was his “wonderful teachers” at his Grammar School, something which “can’t be said for modern schools nowadays“.
Having arrived at Oxford Venables said that whilst he received a “full state grant“, and didn’t have to pay any fees, he still took up various jobs variously as a postman, waiter, barman, and “at one stage, I worked in an iron foundry in South Yorkshire“.
Whilst at Oxford he had “firmly made my mind up that I wanted to be a barrister“. A second degree followed, and a move to London, before pupillage at 7 Kings Bench Walk, described as one of the best commercial chambers.
A full time tenancy did not result, having been taken by “the son of a former member who had [left to] become a judge“. Chambers were “a very different place” back then, and appointments were not based on merit.
A return to Oxford followed with application to be a tutor – “I got the job and never looked back. I spent five wonderful years there. I learnt so much. I kept on learning and learning and learning“.
The students he taught were of “a very high standard” and “were very challenging in the best possible way. They challenged me and I challenged them“.
A tenancy at Pump Court Tax Chambers was next, with 15 barristers and 5 QCs, the “quality was just amazing“.
“It went fantastically well” remarked the defendant, acknowledging that he “sounds immodest“. Although he had a “meteoric rise” a convention that members would only apply to become a senior barrister, i.e. a QC, now KC, in the order that they joined the chambers, meant he was quite far back in the queue.
A change to Old Square Tax Chambers in 1988, where he remains to this day, meant he could apply for, and obtain, silk in 1990 without having to “leapfrog” anyone.
Summaries of the different types of cases he was involved in, at varying levels of courts, were also told to the jury.
One “campaign” to halt a change in the law relating to who can use trusts resulted in a meeting with a Treasury minister. Parliament later stopped the proposed change “in its tracks“.
“Was it publicly known you were the person who campaigned to stop it?” asked Biggs, yes confirmed Venables who said it had been “only proper” for a member of the Revenue to have been present in his meeting with the minister.
Biggs also asked Venables about the apparent “reaction of your victory” in a case involving Lady Ingram … “They were incandescent” he replied.
Asked about whether these proceedings had caused an impact “on your practice” Venables said “it certainly has“, speculating that “the intention in instigating these proceedings is to cancel me“.
It “didn’t work immediately” Venables said, saying that it was only after the first hearing at Southwark Crown Court in October 2024 that the story made “headlines in the national press“. The only work he had now was from abroad, he claimed.
With the clock hitting 4.32pm the proceedings ended for the day, and jurors were told to return at 10am tomorrow.
The prediction of Mr Biggs that his client was “going to be in the witness box for a long time” may well be right. After this batch of questioning ends, Venables faces a grilling under cross-examination from Mr Christopher KC, followed by further re-examination from Biggs.
Alas, the mouseinthecourt has professional commitments preventing his attendance for the remainder of this week.
The trial continues.
At this hearing the CPS were represented by Julian Christopher KC. Mr Venables was represented by Stuart Biggs KC.
The mouseinthecourt attended Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday 10th June 2026.
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